Province pledges $500K for school safety

A new $500,000 provincial investment in school safety across Manitoba is expected to speed up ongoing security upgrades in the Brandon School Division, Supt. Mathew Gustafson told the Sun.

“Any investment in terms of school safety is a good investment,” Gustafson said Monday.

Currently, fewer than half of Brandon’s schools are operating with controlled-access systems, although several others are in the process of having systems installed.

“We had to pull our controlled-access enhancement from last year’s budget because it was too tight,” Gustafson said. “We’ve been trying to do it piece by piece, so new funding would let us accelerate that work instead of relying on savings from other areas.”

Premier Wab Kinew announced the new funding Monday at the head office of the Manitoba School Boards Association in Winnipeg. Kinew and Manitoba Education Minister Tracy Schmidt said the funding will support all 37 Manitoba school divisions to “strengthen safety measures, including controlled access to facilities.”

The announcement follows an incident last Thursday in which a convicted sex offender allegedly hid in a washroom at Darwin School in Winnipeg’s St. Vital area and ambushed a child, grabbing her before she managed to escape and seek help.

To enhance safety across the school system, the MSBA will provide training sessions for school divisions and create a provincewide online safety module for staff. The training will focus on controlled access, risk identification, emergency response and related safety protocols.

Brandon currently has 19 K-8 schools and four high schools, and more than half of them already operate with controlled access or are in various stages of adopting the system, Gustafson said.

“Eight elementary schools already operate with controlled access — locked doors equipped with a camera, microphone, speaker and a remote-entry system monitored from the school office,” he said.

“Another eight K-8 schools are in various stages of adopting the system, from equipment installation to staff training and procedural setup. That leaves three schools still discussing the change.”

While controlled access works smoothly in K-8 schools where students arrive in more predictable patterns, high schools pose a different challenge.

“High schools are larger buildings, and students have different schedules,” Gustafson said.

He said some of the division’s buildings were designed for a different era, adding that as communities change, “schools must adapt, and funding like this helps us upgrade older facilities so they remain safe.”

Given Monday’s announcement, Gustafson expects renewed focus on those solutions, but emphasized that BSD does not yet have concrete high school plans ready to implement.

“If there is funding available … it would help offset any costs we would have around that,” he said. “Safety upgrades would continue regardless of the funding formula.”

It is too early to estimate how much of the safety funding will flow specifically to Brandon or other Westman communities, Manitoba School Boards Association president Alan Campbell told the Sun after the announcement.

“The first step in this process is going to be allowing school divisions the opportunity to collect data on what the current state looks like from school to school and from division to division across the province, then provide that information back to the department in terms of what the current and most immediate needs are,” Campbell said.

The Manitoba government will require all school divisions to review and update emergency preparedness plans, including controlled access measures such as locking doors and monitoring entrances, and report back to the government by Dec. 25, Schmidt said during the announcement.

Gustafson said BSD already has “comprehensive emergency plans in place,” supported by the Incident Command System — a structure widely regarded as a North American best practice for responding to events ranging from fires to lockdowns.

“BSD completed safety audits in all schools last year when implementing the system and hour-zero emergency supports. Those audits identified areas for improvement, many of which are now in progress,” he said.

The division has been enhancing several other safety tools, including UHF radios that allow private, reliable communication between staff inside and outside the school — especially during recess or lunch periods. Intercom upgrades and ongoing staff and student training in risk-response protocols form another layer of the evolving safety network.

Many rural schools, including some in Westman, already meet or exceed existing safety requirements, but the provincewide assessment will help clarify where upgrades are still needed, Campbell told the Sun.

“Most or all of their doors are locked all the time, and many rely on buzzer-entry systems requiring visitors to be visually verified either through a window beside the door or video surveillance,” he said. “I think that’s far more common than people realize, including in Westman communities.”

Regarding the potential impact of the new investment on the region, Campbell said different communities will have different needs.

“Larger places like Brandon or Dauphin may already have ongoing infrastructure investments, while smaller rural schools … may identify different priorities once the province’s assessment begins,” he added.

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