Time-change decision leaves school divisions scrambling

School divisions in both Brandon and Winnipeg this past week have issued warnings to students and their families to take extra safety precautions in the early morning hours as they prepared to commute to class in the dark.

The issue of student safety has come up as a result of the province’s decision to make daylight saving time a permanent reality for Manitoba.

Until a few weeks ago, Manitoba was to have fallen back one hour on Nov. 1, part of an annual practice going back 110 years. Though it was inconsistently rolled out in the province when first introduced, with municipalities making their own decision to switch times, or not, the Manitoba government passed The Official Time Act in the early 1960s mandating uniform, provincewide clock switching as of May 12, 1963.

Now as we plod forward into December and the heart of the winter season, the mornings are getting darker. It’s a situation causing some anxiety for school officials who are responsible for student safety.

Announced with just six weeks’ notice on the back of a simple online survey, the transition to year-round daylight saving time — rebranded as Manitoba Standard Time — was rolled out with seemingly zero regard for the practical problems that would come with the decision.

As expected, the primary victims of this lack of foresight are local school communities.

Divisions like St. James-Assiniboia have already fielded complaints from worried parents and left officials scrambling to manage the fallout.

Students are being forced to commute to class in pitch-black morning darkness, requiring administrators to adjust light timers, re-evaluate dangerous bus stops and issue warnings for children to wear high-visibility clothing just to stay safe on their walk to school.

And though the Brandon School Division has not received reports of widespread concerns or unusual attendance issues — not yet anyway — student and staff safety remains a concern.

Darker mornings could become problematic, said Brandon School Division Supt. Jon Zilkey, as winter sets in and students will increasingly be travelling to school before sunrise.

“Going to school dark in the morning will certainly be new, particularly in December, January,” Zilkey told the Sun this week.

Meanwhile, IT departments have had to fix chaotic digital calendars thrown out of sync with external networks. It is a reminder of what happens when a government prioritizes an easy public relations win over the tedious work of risk assessment.

But the provincial time-zone chaos is only the latest symptom of a broader problem with the actions of our provincial government.

When it comes to managing Manitoba’s public education system, there is a fine line between strong leadership and hasty, top-down micromanagement. Given Premier Wab Kinew’s recent shoot-from-the-hip governance style, the provincial government appears to be leaning heavily into the latter.

Take the sudden ministerial directive from the province banning private digital communication between teachers and students.

Protecting students and establishing clear professional boundaries is a goal we should all support, but this ministerial directive felt distinctly off-the-cuff. By forcing an immediate, blanket prohibition on private messaging and texting, the province blindsided administrators who already had local policies in place.

Instead of taking the time to tailor the directive with already-existing division practices, the province opted for a rigid, one-size-fits-all mandate, forcing divisions to scramble to ensure their policies matched this new provincial template. This kind of sweeping decision suggests the provincial government is not interested in listening to the concerns of those who operate our school divisions.

When the provincial government chooses to dictate rather than collaborate, it alienates the very experts who understand classroom and community realities best. School divisions are not branches of a corporate hierarchy; they are locally elected bodies meant to reflect and serve their distinct populations.

The province needs to stop making impulsive, centralized decisions and start treating school divisions as equal partners.

More importantly, if these sweeping directives prove unworkable — whether the digital ban creates untenable communication barriers or the darker winter mornings create an unacceptable safety crisis for commuting children — the government needs to be humble enough to pivot.

For the time being — no pun intended — that does not seem to be the case.

Leadership means having the strength to course-correct and roll back rigid mandates, being fully ready to change back to the old system if the situation on the ground becomes untenable.