After making a $125 million dollar staffing investment for education on Thursday, Ryan Meili is announcing an additional $3 million for rural education investment on Friday.

Speaking in Indian Head, Meili said an NDP government would form a Rural Education Task Force to work with teachers, parents and local leadership to identify needs in rural schools and use the $3 million  to make targeted investments in services. These could include:

–Helping schools recruit and retain support positions like speech language pathologists, child psychologists, occupational therapists and counsellors;
–Expanding access to safe, affordable transportation options in rural communities;
–Supporting classroom complexity and ensuring rural teachers have the tools they need to help their students; and
–Working with school communities to create anti-racism and anti-bullying initiatives.

“Every child should thrive in the classroom, no matter their postal code. But Scott Moe and the Sask. Party have ignored rural schools for years,” said Meili in a release. “A New Democrat government would form a Rural Education Task Force to develop a strategy to meet the needs of rural students – like more development professionals in the classroom, more busses on the road and more anti-bullying initiatives – and invest $3 million to improve outcomes in rural classrooms.”

Meili added an NDP government would also undertake a feasibility study to examine the need for a new high school in White City to accommodate growth in communities on the east side of Regina and address capacity pressures at Greenall High in Balgonie.

The Saskatchewan Party accused Meili of just creating a “photo op” with a news release stating the last NDP government closed 164 schools in rural Saskatchewan, but the NDP shot back by saying it was school divisions who made those choices because of declining enrolment and not them.