Seine River School Division announces cuts, hiring freeze

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This article was published 06/11/2023 (719 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Seine River School Division has announced a hiring freeze — effective immediately — and plans to start charging for hyper-local bussing and extended-day kindergarten in 2024 in an unusual mid-year move to find cost savings.

The Lorette-based board office released a list of “cost saving measures,” in memos released Nov. 3.

“The impacts on our staff and students can’t be understated,” said Jonathan Waite, president of the local teachers union, whose members work in classrooms in St. Norbert, La Broquerie and rural communities in-between.

For the remainder of 2023-24, Seine River will reassign teachers who are not stationed in classrooms — for example, learning support and student services employees — to fill school-based vacancies.

It is also scaling back on “non-essential expenditures,” and introducing a fee-for-service model in order to keep transporting young children who live within 0.8 to 1.6 kilometres of their school and running a Grade 1 preparatory program.

Waite said the changes will inevitably impact “rich education experiences” and limit participation in a unique school-readiness initiative that sets up children for success throughout their schooling careers.

At the same time, he said the hiring freeze and related staffing shuffle will harm vulnerable students who rely on additional and specialized support.

“I’ve been teaching in the division for 23 years, this is my 23rd year. I’ve never experienced a situation where there have been cost saving measures implemented during the school year; I can’t remember a time like this,” Waite noted.

While acknowledging the timing is unusual — the imminent changes were revealed about eight months after the board of trustees approved its 2023-24 budget — Seine River’s new chief financial officer said swift action is necessary.

Amanda Senkowski undertook a comprehensive analysis of the division’s financial health after being appointed secretary-treasurer in July.

“It became clear that our expenses weren’t in alignment with our revenues, and we were on a trajectory to overspend in a manner that isn’t consistent with what our responsibilities are (as a public organization),” she said.

Some line items have increased significantly since the budget was approved, including snow clearing, as a result of skyrocketing insurance expenses, Senkowski said.

The fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, inability to raise property taxes locally, and backpay required to compensate staff after the Tories’ rescinded wage-freeze legislation have all caused school board budgeting challenges in recent years.

Superintendent Ryan Anderson said decision makers wanted to reduce staffing — which accounts for about 80 per cent of the budget — in “the most humane (way) possible,” so they are moving employees around and leveraging attrition.

Anderson said they are making adjustments to ancillary programs outside of the division’s core mandate and which are not funded by the province in order to minimize disruptions to student learning.

Manitoba requires boards transport students who have to walk more than 1.6 km to school at no charge.

Seine River is ending its over-and-above service for kindergarten to Grade 4 students, meaning parents will have to pay $200 per child if they want to continue accessing divisional bussing between January and June.

The other significant change, also coming into effect after the winter break, involves invoicing families $10 per day to remain registered in Kids at Play, also known as the KAP or Strong Start program.

Participants — about 350 students or 100 per cent of the kindergarten population this year — spend a half-day with their early years teacher and the other half with an early childhood educator who runs play-based lessons that complement the curriculum.

Board chairwoman Wendy Bloomfield said trustees agreed these changes were the best way to avoid “massive layoffs.”

Officials felt discontinuing these services would be more disruptive than introducing fees for them, Bloomfield said, adding subsidies will be available to low-income families.

A number of delegations have registered to discuss the changes at the Nov. 14 board meeting.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca