Curricular and Extra curricular activities inside of schools are not subject to proof of vaccination and negative testing according to the Saskatchewan government.

Education Minister Dustin Duncan sent a letter to the school division board chairs on Wednesday.

He says that he wrote the letter to provide clarity to the school divisions. “The guidance that was sent out as apart of Dr. Shahab’s public health order is that those types of events, school based events from that order. We wanted to provide that clarity to the school divisions.”

Inside of the letter, Duncan says that school sanctioned events are exempt from the public health order because education is considered to be an essential service and the public health order in the province primarily applies to non-essential services.

The provincial opposition says the Saskatchewan government are sending mixed signals to school board directors.

NDP Education Critic Carla Beck said on Monday, school board directors received a letter saying they could have the local authority to issue proof of vaccination testing for their events.

This is another contradictory message from the education minister according to Beck. “On one hand delegating the difficult decisions to these local administrators and local elected folks often without resources and on the other hand the minister swoops in and contradicts them and upends the plans that they made with their local medical health officers.”

The Education Minister said the letter came after questions about the proof of vaccination status possibly being required for the 5A volleyball provincial championships scheduled for this weekend.