Province plans education overhaul

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/03/2021 (2005 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The province is looking to revamp Manitoba’s education system, doing away with most school boards in favour of a new overriding education authority, Education Minister Cliff Cullen revealed on late Monday. 

Additionally, Manitoba’s 37 school divisions will be merged into 15 regional catchment areas, although these regions will not have “any legislative authority,” according to Cullen.

However, the organizational structure of the Division scolaire franco-manitobaine will remain unchanged due to Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees minority language educational rights to French-speaking individuals.

Cullen said these changes are being brought about because of the province’s K-12 education review, which was finally released to the public on Monday after two years of development.

The province concluded — based on extensive consultations with teachers, parents and students — that they needed to enhance the effectiveness of the education system’s governance and funding structures, especially at the administrative level.

“The current system is based on an unfair, inequitable and unsustainable funding formula, dependent on a community’s ability to raise property taxes,” said Cullen. “As we have witnessed, the formula creates huge disparities across our province. It is a system that has ballooned over the years and it is past its prime.”

To Cullen, the desire to streamline this system became increasingly apparent in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, since he said the existence of 37 independent school divisions made it difficult to provide consistent pandemic relief.

But even before that, the minister said that administrative costs remained some of the highest in the country, despite the fact that Manitoba students “achieve some of the lowest results” academically.

“Our system has more trustees per capita than anywhere else in Canada,” he said. “Our administration expenses, as a percentage of costs, is higher than most provinces. What we do need is a system that is consistent, efficient and student-focused.”

In order to bring about this desired change, Cullen said that the province plans to do away with school boards and school board trustees altogether, with school divisions now operating under a single government-appointed provincial advisory board.

This provincial education authority will consist of six to 11 people, at least two of whom would be selected from parents of current public school students across Manitoba.

Plus, each school will be represented by a community council that gives parents a formal process to influence decisions.

“So it’s certainly a structural change, but I think this is where parents will have greater input in terms of their school’s activity, they’ll be able to work more closely with their local principals and they’ll work more closely with the directors of education within the region,” said Cullen. “So, I think this is a real benefit for parents and caregivers going forward.”

In addition, Cullen said the province will be condensing Manitoba’s 37 school divisions into 15 geographical areas to further streamline the system.

While the Brandon School Division won’t be grouped in with any nearby entity, other Westman school divisions will be amalgamated.

According to a technical briefing that took place before Cullen’s announcement on Monday, Mountain View, Swan Valley and Turtle River will be combined into one.

The same goes for the Beautiful Plains, Park West and Rolling River school divisions, alongside the newly merged region consisting of Fort La Bosse, Southwest Horizon and Turtle Mountain.

However, as mentioned before, Cullen said these new geographic regions do not have any regulatory authority and only serve as a structure for the new provincial education authority.

“There will be directors of education appointed within each region. That will be the contact to the schools within that respective region,” he said. “So the principals will work closely with the directors of education, which will funnel directly into the provincial education authority.”

The Brandon School Division wasn’t able to provide the Sun with an official comment as of press time, with a representative stating that BSD would need to undertake a more extensive dissection of the K-12 education review and its corresponding legislation, Bill 64, in order to provide a more detailed response.

However, Manitoba Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont didn’t pull any punches talking to the Sun on Monday afternoon, claiming that this new governance structure could be the “end of public education as we know it in Manitoba.”

More specifically, Lamont characterized Premier Brian Pallister and his Progressive Conservative party as “control freaks” who want to politicize the education system by removing the democratic aspects of it.

“Parents are going to lose, students are going to lose,” he said. “If I have an issue, who do I go knock on the door of? The minister?”

Representatives of the Canadian Union of Public Employees also believe that the elimination of school divisions will result in less public control and accountability.

“This government wants to remove all of that local decision making and replace it with their own centralized, hand-picked appointees on Broadway,” a representative wrote in a Monday afternoon news release. “Toothless advisory boards will leave parents and families with no real voice in education.”

Manitoba NDP Leader Wab Kinew also panned the announcement, saying the Progressive Conservatives are repeating a lot of the same mistakes they made centralizing the health-care system.

Now, Kinew believes that many education issues raised at the local level will just disappear into layers of bureaucracy without any real hope of local input.

“Right now, if something comes up in your child’s school, you can contact your local school trustee,” he said. “But after this bill comes into law, you’re going to have to take it up with Mr. Pallister.”

Right now, the bill designed to codify this new education system into law — the Education Modernization Act or Bill 64 — was tabled on Monday, with Cullen hoping that the legislative process will move along efficiently.

If all goes according to the Progressive Conservatives’ plans, the new provincial education authority could be established as early as November 2021, with changes to the school trustees system expected by July 2022.

“We know this looks like a lot of change and there will be a lot to digest over the coming days,” said Cullen. “But making the changes our system needs is not a quick fix. For now, parents, rest assured that you will not see immediate changes in your local school. You children will continue to see their teacher and will continue learning.”

The province also launched a new website, bettereducationmb.ca, in tandem with Monday’s announcement to give the public a better look at the full K-12 education review and this new proposed education system.

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com, with files from Colin Slark

» Twitter: @KyleDarbyson