Telling Tales out of School

with Nick Martin

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• Our very own national scandal

  Winnipeg School Division trustee Mike Babinsky has been on the phone three times already today — but who’s counting? — about the Great Sisler/Trudeau Scandal of 2013.

  View Full Post 05/6/2013 12:07 PM 0

• Activist leaves spotlight, and other stuff

  Evan Wiens has decided he needs a break from the media spotlight.

  View Full Post 04/23/2013 3:50 PM 0

• Eight years and counting

  An anniversary passed by quietly on Sunday.

  View Full Post 04/22/2013 4:21 PM 0

• Sorry, nation: Soccer mess is my fault

  I’ve finally found out who’s responsible for the sorry state of Canadian men’s soccer — I am.

  View Full Post 04/18/2013 2:34 PM 0

• We must never forget what fascism is

  Have we forgotten what fascism is?

  View Full Post 04/8/2013 3:13 PM 0

• Sorry, Strother, a communications breakdown

  As Strother (no relation) Martin once said to Paul Newman, “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”

  View Full Post 04/4/2013 11:12 AM 0

• What in the world is going on in McCreary?

  I’ve never understood why Turtle River School Division wasn’t amalgamated in 2002 when the NDP imposed mergers and carving-ups of school divisions across Manitoba.

  View Full Post 03/25/2013 7:21 PM 0

• The unspoken can be mighty scary

  What Advanced Education Minister Erin Selby didn’t say is pretty scary.

  View Full Post 03/20/2013 1:08 PM 0

• Internet weirdness, and oodles of other stuff

  I’d been going back and forth on email for several weeks with a mother who said she’s been banned for no reason from her child’s school by a principal who holds a grudge against mom. The superintendent won’t even answer mom’s calls, and she wanted me to write about it.

  View Full Post 03/7/2013 3:55 PM 0

• Allan makes the right move

  

  Education Minister Nancy Allan sure sounds as though she intends to enforce Bill 18.

  View Full Post 02/26/2013 4:50 PM 0

• U.S. media giant slaps me down

  I’ve had trouble sleeping and focussing throughout the day since being told by a U.S. media giant that my work is shallow.

  View Full Post 02/13/2013 11:01 AM 0

• Why school taxes are going up, chapter three

  Sixteen school divisions across Manitoba are not receiving a single penny more in provincial operating grants than they did a year ago.

  View Full Post 02/4/2013 2:28 PM 0

• Why school taxes are going up, a sideshow

  Her Majesty’s official opposition can always potentially bring reasoned discourse to any debate, along with helpful suggestions for the good of the entire citizenry — is it so with the funding of the public education system?

  View Full Post 01/31/2013 12:35 PM 0

• Why school taxes are going up --- chapter 2

  You’re saying to yourself, $27.2 million in new provincial school operating grants sounds like a lot of money, so why would my school property taxes go up?

  View Full Post 01/28/2013 7:49 PM 0

• When tragedy strikes a school

  I shouldn’t really have been so surprised as I was when retired teacher Bill Jurens told me that St. James-Assiniboia School Division held afternoon classes at (as it was then called) Sturgeon Creek Regional Secondary School in 1978, after a boy was shot to death in his classroom that morning.

  View Full Post 01/20/2013 7:22 PM 0

• Why your school taxes are going up Chapter 1

  People often ask why in the world Manitoba would tie the quality of a public education to property taxes, but it’s even more bizarre than that.

  View Full Post 01/11/2013 10:29 AM 0

• Teacher/coaches, talk to me, eh?

  I wrote a story a few weeks ago that attracted considerable attention, about the number of top scholar-athletes who allegedly have used schools of choice to try to stack high school teams for a shot at a provincial championship.

  View Full Post 01/7/2013 4:04 PM 0

• WSD budget is top secret

  You’ll get your chance to address the Winnipeg School Division board on its budget right around the end of February, barely two weeks before the March 15 deadline for passing budgets.

  View Full Post 12/19/2012 3:44 PM 0

• Good news --- we've got hockey!!!

  Even if the Jets aren’t playing by April, you’ll still get some hockey.

  View Full Post 11/30/2012 12:42 PM 0

• Great kids from Churchill

  

  I’ve rarely enjoyed doing a story so much as Friday’s piece on the Duke of Marlborough Storm boys volleyball team from Churchill.

  View Full Post 11/28/2012 2:56 PM 0