Increased lunchroom fees are on the way for families with students in the Regina Public School system.
Following the release of the 2023-24 provincial budget, the public school system said they “have been faced with some difficult budget decisions.”
As a result, effective this September, noon supervision fees will apply to all elementary and high school students who stay at school for lunch, including students who are transported to school by the school division.
The same rates will apply to all students who stay for lunch, regardless of how many days per week they stay at school for lunch.
“If high school or elementary school students do not stay for lunch, they are not required to pay for this fee,” said Darren Boldt, the director of education at the Regina Public School System.
Lunchroom fees are broken down as:
- $55 for kindergarten
- $110 for elementary school students
- $55 for high school students
Fees are capped at $220 per year, per family.
For some parents with children in the system, the fees are another difficult financial decision.
“It’s crazy, to put it simply,” Regina mother Crystal Moffatt said. Moffat has two kids, one in Grade 4 and on in Grade 9, meaning she will pay $165 in lunchroom fees in 2023-24.
While she said she can afford to pay the fees right now, there were many years she couldn’t.
“There will be some parents not only wondering which bill to pay each month, but also how they’ll afford to feed themselves on top of feeding their children, meeting basic needs, (and) worrying about these fees when it can be tough enough to buy school supplies.”
Originally introduced in the 2016-17 school year to elementary and non-bused students, the fee was implemented to offset costs associated with schools providing noon supervision for students who spend their lunchtime at school. The fee was originally set at $100 per year with a $200 family maximum and had not been adjusted in the six years since it was introduced.
The Regina Public School system said revenues from the fee currently cover less than 20 per cent of the cost of providing noon supervision.
Boldt said the fee goes directly towards paying the wage of staff to cover noon hour supervision.
“(This fee) won’t get anywhere near covering half the cost,” Boldt said. “The school division will still cover a significant part of the expense for noon hour supervision.”
“We appreciate that any new or increased fee might present challenges to some families,” the school board said in the letter. “Please rest assured that ability to pay the fee will not be a barrier to students needing to stay at school over the lunch period.”
Details on how families will be helped with fees have not been disclosed, and for Moffatt, it just raises more questions.
“What happens when people can’t afford to pay that fee?” she asked. “Will they start making children leave the school when it’s -40 or colder because the payment wasn’t made?”