- Click here for the Cool Bus Tour Itinerary
A very cool bus will begin a four-week tour across Saskatchewan September 24, promoting the importance of our K-12 education and the need for improved government funding for schools.
People in communities along the tour route are invited to Come out and give the Cool Bus a hand quite literally to decorate the bus. The CUPE Education Workers Steering Committee, which is sponsoring the tour, expect thousands of residents to sign their name to a hand-shaped sticker and place it on the bus.
Our Cool Bus Tour is intended to show that everyone has a hand in education, explains committee chair Frank Mentes. From parents to school secretaries, from community liaison workers to caretakers, each one of us contributes to K-12 education.
The CUPE Cool Bus also will be carrying postcards to Premier Calvert and petitions to the provincial government, requesting they give education a hand. Mr. Mentes says the Saskatchewan government must increase school operating grants to ease the burden on local taxpayers.
The provincial government used to cover 60 per cent of the costs of K-12 education. Now it provides on average about 41 per cent, with local property owners shouldering the balance.
The CUPE Cool Bus is scheduled to visit 20 communities during the tour. It will make its final stop in Regina on October 22, the first day of Education Week, when CUPE education workers will present the petitions and postcards to the provincial government.