Winnipeg School Division seeks ‘fullest potential’ in R.B. Russell career hub

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This article was published 19/02/2024 (598 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A North End high school is being rebranded as a “career hub” to provide post-secondary training to area residents, recruit adults into the division’s workforce and better serve the surrounding community.

The Winnipeg School Division has teamed up with Red River College Polytechnic and North Forge to increase the hours of operation at 364 Dufferin Ave. and expand the Grade 9-12 building’s programming.

“R.B. Russell — which is a state-of-the-art vocational building — is not being used to its fullest potential,” said Matt Henderson, WSD chief superintendent. “And so, what we have decided is to really make sure that it becomes a community hub, a bit of a community college and a community centre.”

The division is looking at Bronx Park Community Centre as a model for the project, Henderson said.

The multi-use site on Henderson Highway is home to a publicly accessible woodshop, sports facilities, classrooms and seasonal farmers market. Its programs are run in partnership with the Good Neighbours Active Living Centre.

Early consultations with staff, students and community-based organizations are underway to determine how to leverage R.B. Russell Vocational High School and meet its neighbours’ needs between the hours of 7 a.m. to midnight.

The school currently offers graphic design, carpentry, child care assistant, culinary arts, hairstyling, health-care aide, horticulture and welding technology.

While brainstorming for the career lab expansion has only just begun, WSD staff indicated there have been initial discussions about launching a grocery store and hockey academy at the site.

The first concrete phase of the expansion will have RRC Polytech rollout workforce development courses before the end of the school year.

Starting April 1, the high school will begin offering library technician training to interested candidates. Successful graduates of the program will automatically earn positions in WSD in 2024-25.

The post-secondary institute is expected to launch similar programs for administrative clerks and fifth-class power engineering (the vocation of operating and maintaining boiler plants) in May and June.

Sylvia Martin, incoming divisional principal of the career lab, said her vision is for R.B. Russell to become a place for training, gathering and creativity.

“For over 20 years now, I’ve seen how (students of all ages) acquire skills that gave them opportunities for careers — not only jobs, but careers that changed their lives outside of school,” said Martin, who has worked as a guidance counsellor and science teacher, and previously oversaw Tec Voc’s aerospace manufacturing and maintenance aviation program.

Vocational programs provide pathways for teenagers and adult learners to break family cycles of poverty, she said, adding there will be opportunities to offer wraparound services including interview preparation at R.B. Russell.

Canada’s latest census data show the unemployment rate in Point Douglas, the provincial electoral district in which the high school is located, was 16 per cent in 2021.

At the time, Winnipeg’s overall unemployment rate was seven per cent.

“In order to support the increase of Indigenous learners in post-secondary, we have to design education differently,” said Christine Watson, vice-president, academic at RRC Polytech.

The budding partnership will allow RRC Polytech to build relationships with area residents, advertise its programs and make post-secondary training more accessible to First Nations, Métis and Inuit students, Watson added.

RRC Polytech is hosting focus groups to ask families, elders and representatives from Huddle Selkirk and Urban Circle Training Centre, among others, about their vision for the community and barriers to accessing post-secondary education.

Upwards of 64 per cent of R.B. Russell’s student population identifies as Indigenous, according to a 2020-21 report released by WSD.

A total of 16 per cent of students are immigrants or refugees. Roughly 14 per cent of the population is in the care of Child and Family Services.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca