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  • Click here for the Cool Bus Tour Itinerary

Regina: A very cool bus tour will begin a four-week journey across the province next Monday, promoting the importance of our K-12 education and the need for improved government funding for schools.

The CUPE Cool Bus, organized by education workers represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, will visit schools in the Maple Creek, Rosetown and Biggar School Divisions during the first week of the tour.

People in every community on the Cool Bus Tour are invited to Come out and give the Cool Bus a hand quite literally to decorate the bus. The education workers are hoping more than 1,000 residents across the province will 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 Frank Mentes, Chair of the Education Workers Steering Committee. 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, a school support worker in the Regina Public School System, says the Saskatchewan government must increase school operating grants to ease the burden on local taxpayers.

The provincial government used to cover 60% of the costs of K-12 education. Now it provides about 41% (on average), 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, where CUPE education workers will present the petitions and postcards to the provincial government.

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For information about the Cool Bus Tour call:
Frank Mentes at 533-7737 (cell #)
or Patty Brockman at 525-5874, extension 227