Schools around the province will soon have another flag flying high as the Saskatchewan government has pledged to have provincial flags outside of schools.

The policy mirrors that of Alberta, which requires both the federal and provincial flags to be flown on the school's property.

The policy, announced during the throne speech, would require some work on the part of school divisions.

Southeast Cornerstone Public School Division Director of Education Keith Keating describes the potential cost.

"We've had some conversations with the Ministry of Education about looking at sourcing flags and poles, but we haven't heard if the cost of buying and installing will be borne by the province or the individual school divisions. So there are some logistics of sourcing the poles, but also the cost of installation."

"We've just done some rough estimates and it looks like to install the number of poles needed in our school division, we're likely in the range of $250,000 to $300,000 at the low end. So if you extrapolate that across the province, I think would be quite resource-heavy to get that job done."

Policy related to the Canadian flag prevents any school division from putting both on one pole, so that means more work for whoever puts in the pole.

"It's going to be a tremendous amount of time and effort required to make sure all schools can fly the Saskatchewan flag as well as the Canada flag, as is currently required in the Education Act. Many schools only have one flag pole right now as per current protocol," said Keating, "So we have to source and install enough poles that we could do both of those at the same time."

 Keating says that he supports flying the Saskatchewan flag while hoping that it's not too much of a burden to put up.

"I think flying the Saskatchewan flag is a great thing. We live in a great province and that's something to be proud of. But I am a little concerned just about the cost and logistics of making it happen." 

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