{"id":607460,"date":"2026-04-16T07:01:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T07:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/607460\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T07:01:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T07:01:19","slug":"sask-government-may-not-accept-10-million-donation-for-full-day-kindergarten-in-saskatoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/607460\/","title":{"rendered":"Sask. government may not accept $10-million donation for full-day kindergarten in Saskatoon"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Education Minister Everett Hindley says he is “very grateful” for a family foundation’s multi-million-dollar offer to keep full-day kindergarten going five days a week in Saskatoon, but he won’t commit to accepting it.<\/p>\n

The Brownlee Family Foundation has pledged to donate $10 million to keep the program going, but only if the province matches the money.<\/p>\n

Saskatchewan’s NDP Opposition is urging the government to accept.<\/p>\n

Hindley said conversations are ongoing over the implications of accepting the gift, though he praised the full-day kindergarten program in Saskatoon Public Schools.<\/p>\n

“I haven’t heard a definitive no from the minister, but I haven’t seen any indication that they’re saying yes,” NDP education critic Matt Love said at a news conference in Saskatoon earlier Wednesday.<\/p>\n

“So what I’m saying today is I’m calling on the minister to say yes, to say thank you to Mr. [Wayne] Brownlee and all of the generous donors from the [Saskatoon Public Schools Foundation], and to get to work to ensure that these services are maintained.”<\/p>\n

Love said the full-day kindergarten program operates in 29 classrooms in 26 schools in the Saskatoon public school division. The foundation has provided funds for the full-day kindergarten program in some schools for five years.<\/p>\n

\"ASaskatchewan NDP Opposition education critic Matt Love speaks at a news conference in Saskatoon about a $10-million donation to help fund full-day kindergarten in the Saskatoon public school system. (Don Somers\/CBC)<\/p>\n

The $10-million donation is intended to help keep the program going for another five years. The foundation has heralded the program as a significant contributor to success for students.<\/p>\n

Love expressed disappointment that the Saskatchewan Party government did not include matching funds for the donation in its March 18 budget.<\/p>\n

Zeba Ahmad, the foundation’s CEO, called full-day, Monday-to-Friday kindergarten the “gold standard” for early education in an interview on CBC Saskatchewan’s The 306 on Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ahmad pointed out Saskatchewan is one of two provinces in Canada without full-day, all-day kindergarten throughout the education system. Alberta is the other province.<\/p>\n

About a quarter of students in Saskatchewan fail to graduate, Ahmad said, and the province’s literacy rate is declining.<\/p>\n

“So this is about investing in the early years,” Ahmad told The 306.<\/p>\n

Love pointed out Hindley was the health minister in 2023 when the province rejected a donation of $2 million to fund an MRI machine in Estevan, which sparked a public outcry.<\/p>\n

The province later backtracked on that decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-607460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}