Five additional schools chosen for more cash, programs

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This article was published 11/02/2025 (280 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba’s community schools program has ballooned since 2020 with 22 more sites now receiving extra funding to promote regular attendance and run outreach initiatives.

Alongside the school funding announcement for 2025-26, the Kinew government announced this week that five more schools have received a special “CSP” designation. That label, which is reserved for kindergarten-to-Grade 12 sites located in low-income neighbourhoods, comes with $80,000 annually.

The additions include: William Whyte School and Elmwood High School in central Winnipeg; Crocus Plains Regional Secondary School in Brandon’s south end; R.D. Parker Collegiate in Thompson; and Frontier Mosakahiken School in Moose Lake.

“In a perfect world, we’d get all the money we’d need all at once to address all of the issues, but that’s never going to happen,” said Sandy Nemeth, president of the Manitoba School Boards Association. “These (designations) are good, big steps.”

Each building is assigned a community liaison who is responsible for co-ordinating student and caregiver engagement initiatives. Extracurriculars often include nutrition, cultural awareness, mental health, mentoring and crime prevention programs.

(While some schools have “community” in their title to reflect their family-oriented nature, they are not necessarily official CSP sites and don’t receive the related top-up funding.)

The Community Schools Act was introduced in 2012 to support the well-being of students from “socioeconomically disadvantaged communities” and promote kindergarten-to-Grade 12 buildings as holistic hubs with a range of academic and non-academic programming.

“The health and well-being of students cannot be separated from the health and well-being of their families and communities,” states an excerpt of the legislation that came into force about a dozen years ago.

Retired NDP MLA Nancy Allan, who was Manitoba’s education minister from 2009 to 2013 — during which her mantra was “cradle to career” and she often spoke about the importance of an early start to school, as well as education being an equalizer — brought in the program.

Allan recalled she and her colleagues wanted to recognize the uniqueness of every school and allow local decision makers to fund whatever initiative would benefit their parents and wider community most.

Various governments have endorsed the umbrella program over the last five years by increasing its membership to 53 from 31, or by 44 per cent.

As of 2017, there were 31 northern, rural and urban community schools.

Under the former Progressive Conservative government, 10 schools were added to that list from 2020 and 2023. Twelve additional designations have been announced since Premier Wab Kinew took office in October 2023.

Recent school board beneficiaries include Winnipeg, Louis Riel, River East Transcona, Frontier, Sunrise, Portage la Prairie, Lord Selkirk, Mystery Lake and Brandon.

The latest report on the program, which analyzed member schools from 2018 to 2022, indicated the COVID-19 pandemic appeared to have “a more dramatic effect” on these sites versus other public schools.

“The (achievement) disparities overall appear to have increased with the pandemic. It will be important to monitor how CSP schools respond with the weakening of the pandemic and the removal of COVID-19 restrictions,” states an excerpt from the report prepared for then-PC education minister Wayne Ewasko.

Education Minister Tracy Schmidt said the growing program is “complementary” to the school funding formula and universal school meal program. Each of the 53 CSP sites have a breakfast, lunch and snack program at present, Schmidt said.

Schools are selected for the program based on census income data, Indigenous student enrolment and location, given the province wants to ensure schools from urban, rural and northern areas benefit from the extra funding.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca