Lack of funding is failing Saskatoon students who need support, school board says

As the number of students requiring more support in schools increases, the board of education at Saskatoon Public Schools is calling on the Saskatchewan government to reconsider how it funds schools.

During a board meeting Tuesday, the school division's board of education reviewed data for students requiring what it calls "intensive support."

The data shows a growing rate of students enrolled in Saskatoon Public Schools who need additional support, such as students who have autism spectrum disorder or an intellectual disability, outpacing total enrolment growth.

Shane Skjerven, director of education for Saskatoon Public Schools, said the division has to pull as much as $11 million of annual funding from other operations to support students with special needs.

"That's why we would have larger class sizes; that's why we may have fewer caretakers; that's why there might be less sports equipment in schools," Skjerven said.

Skjerven said he's proud of the services they have for those students, but the funding is not readily available.

The number of students in the division needing intensive support climbed to 2,086 in the 2024-25 year from 1,326 in the 2015-16 school year, the division's data shows.

The rate of students needing intensive support has also increased, accounting for 7.22 per cent of students in 2024-25, compared to 5.52 per cent in 2015-16 (total enrolment in pre-kindergarten to Grade 12 increased over the same period to 28,878 from 24,023).

The data also shows a spike in the number of students diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, increasing to 841 in 2024-25 from 285 in 2015-16.

"What we're seeing is not only an increase in the number of students that have been diagnosed with both autism and [intellectual development disorder], but what we're seeing is the students are affected by these disorders in a much more significant way in recent years," he said.

Skjerven said the issue is that current provincial funding assumes that students with complex needs are spread equally throughout the province, but that's not the case. He said there are more students who need support in Saskatoon. 

He and the school board are asking the Saskatchewan government to reconsider its funding formula to acknowledge the differing needs in schools. Skjerven said the division has been asking for the change for several years.

Firstly, Skjerven said that John Dolan School, which serves students aged five to 21 with multiple and complex disabilities, should be funded separately from other public schools.

Secondly, he said, schools should have different funding depending on the number of students who need intensive support to ensure they have the right resources, like educational assistants.