Province Supporting Isolated Rural Schools

The provincial government is reaching out to help more isolated rural schools. Education Minister Ramona Jennex announced $22-million in funding towards additional programming or teaching resources to 98 schools including 10 on the South Shore. Jennex says she decided to change the funding formula after a number of meetings with school boards across the province. She says there were a number of factors.

"We also looked at the distance children drive to get to school and then, how far it would be from that school to another school, so, from elementary school to elementary school and we've included that in the formula and we've grandparented the small schools that might not be isolated because, as you know, there are increased costs for boards to be heating buildings without the children there."

The funds will be provided to each regional school board, not individual schools. There has been no increase in the local school boards total revenue from the province because of this change.

• For the SSRSB, the following small schools have been grand-fathered and are the basis of a calculation per school in our funding, based solely on the fact that there are fewer than 100 students in each school:

Pentz Elementary


Mill Village Consolidated


Petite Riviere Elementary

• The following schools are small and isolated and the board's funding formula includes a calculation to off-set a portion of additional costs for staffing and property services:

New Ross Consolidated


North Queens Community School


Big Tancook Elementary School

• For the following small high schools, the school board receives funding in the formula calculation to off-set a portion of the cost of staffing (amount varies school to school):

Bridgewater Junior-Senior High School


Forest Heights Community School


Liverpool Regional High School


New Germany Rural High School