Regina Public School Board Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Costs
Voters should take note of how Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are being woven into the Regina Public School System. The current Strategic Plan emphasizes DEI, which involves a considerable commitment of time, resources, and investment.
What does it mean?
The Strategic Plan directly incorporates DEI initiatives, and there are dedicated resources for creating and implementing DEI requirements, goals, and protocols. This is a relatively recent development in the timeline of the Regina Public School Board, which is reflected in the RPS strategic plan.
The Strategic plan that was in effect from 2017-2020 contains no mention Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as a program or as a measures for success. There are no mentions of inclusion, neither are there any mentions of equity. There is a single mention of the word “diversity.”1 Meanwhile, the Strategic Plan that is in effect now contains 11 uses of the word “inclusion,” 9 uses of the word “equity,” 22 uses of the word “diversity,” and 8 uses of DEI as an acronym.2
There are 4 mentions of the word “reading,” the word “math” is mentioned once, and there are no uses of the word “writing.” This means that DEI initiatives are mentioned more often then reading, writing, and math in the current Regina Public Schoolboard Strategic Plan.3
Further, the 2017-2020 strategic plan made no mention of the use of a DEI framework and had no goals that were related to DEI. In the current strategic plan (2023-2027) the second Goal of the School Board is to provide and “equitable” environment that is “committed to principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion.”4 One of the measures of Goal 3 (Healthy and Skilled Employees) is going to be asking them “To what extent do you agree with the statement: The Division promotes a culture of equity, diversity, and inclusion”.5 Additionally, under the heading for 5th Goal of the current strategic plans, we find section 5.4 :“Advance the board’s equity/diversity initiatives.” DEI initiatives are operating at every level of the RPS.
Additionally, the organization chart of RPS says they have an “Equity and Anti-Racism Co-Ordinator” named Maxine Mckenzie-Cox, and working under her is an advocacy and Wellbeing co-ordinator name Kyla Christiansen. These two people work for the schoolboard and are paid by the schoolboard. Maxine Mckenzie-Cox was paid $121,416 for the 2022-2023 fiscal year, and Kyla Christiansen was paid $ 88,823 for the 2022-2023 School Year.6 This means that the Regina Public School Board paid our $210,239 Dollars in order to fund the activities of the two top DEI administrators. The DEI division within which these people work is listed as being integrated into both Division Services, and Student Achievement and School Services. This means that the DEI division is going to be implementing DEI goals at every level of the School System.
The DEI focus of the current Strategic Plan requires a significant amount of time, resources, and investment.
Let your voice be heard.
Email Saskatchewan’s Minister of Education today.
Email your Regina Public School Board Trustee in your division today.