PC plan for central online high school shelved

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This article was published 22/03/2024 (593 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba Education has abandoned plans to create an entirely new online high school to increase access to remote learning and expand e-course offerings coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The department’s planned takeover of InformNet — a Grade 9-12 remote learning program operated by Winnipeg’s St. James-Assinbioia School Division — appears to be collateral damage from the recent government transition.

“We want kids in school. We know how important community is. We know how much the pandemic impacted that, especially for young people. Getting them back in-person with other people is huge for them; it helps with mental health, it helps with (socialization),” said Nello Altomare, minister of education.

Altomare said he is focused on establishing a universally accessible nutrition program and other priorities laid out in his October 2023 mandate letter from Premier Wab Kinew.

The letter does not mention the launch of an online high school. Neither does a 56-page transition binder that was prepared for the new minister shortly after he was elected and tapped to oversee the kindergarten-to-Grade 12 portfolio.

Internal department documents show public servants were preparing to open registration for a yet-to-be-named school for senior years students last spring.

The work was underway in response to an IBM Canada report that recommended the province launch a “centrally managed” online school featuring scheduled and do-at-your-own pace options in English, French and French immersion.

The consulting firm was contracted to research e-learning models and survey stakeholders on gaps in alternative lesson delivery in early 2022.

“Development and establishment of the virtual school will be in a phased approach, starting with setting up a special operating agency and providing services for grades 9-12,” states an excerpt of the final report delivered that fall. An expansion to younger grades would be explored after the high school is successfully up and running, per the authors.

Their other recommendations included allocating funding for every school board to hire a remote-learning liaison and bolstering public education to ensure families make informed decisions when registering pupils for full-time e-learning.

PC education critic Grant Jackson said he was caught by surprise about the NDP’s direction.

Asked about the absence of the e-school in the transition documents, Jackson indicated they were prepared by civil servants and the Tories supported the project when they were in power.

The former government identified a gap in service, which disproportionately affects rural and northern students in communities with small populations and shoddy connectivity, and proposed a solution to it, Jackson said.

“What are they going to do to address the gap or do they feel the gap isn’t there? Either way, they need to be open and transparent with Manitobans on this,” he said.

Following IBM Canada’s submission, the department undertook its own consultations, with a tentative plan to expand access to InformNet and relaunch it as a provincial school for 2023-24, per department records obtained by the Free Press via freedom of information requests.

A total of 575 students, teachers and education leaders were surveyed on the proposed model between September 2022 and February 2023.

A brief prepared for then-education minister Wayne Ewasko in March 2023 indicated there was “general support” for the project across the province and it reflected lessons learned from years of pandemic disruptions to in-person education.

One source said the province’s proposal wasn’t fully developed and ultimately, the division — which received increased funding in 2020 to increase InformNet’s intake in response to pandemic disruptions — did not receive a windfall of cash to upscale the program.

InformNet, originally established in 1997, remains the only virtual Grade 9-12 school in Manitoba that is fully accredited and open to all students and adult learners.

Current remote learning programs look much different than the emergency ones cobbled together in the spring of 2020, said Kirsten Thompson, president of the Manitoba Association of Education Technology Leaders.

Thompson noted teachers delivering these programs on an ongoing basis in a post-pandemic world are trained in evidence-based practices for e-learning and enthusiastic in their delivery.

“(They are) not going away,” she said in a statement on behalf of MAETL.

“We continue to have medically fragile students, individuals working to address mental health challenges, schools who want to increase student programming options, and families who are navigating how to balance home school options with the desire for support from certified staff.”

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca