‘Astronomical’ funding won’t meet basic needs

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This article was published 12/04/2023 (935 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ON a regular basis, school board chairs and the senior leadership of metro Winnipeg school divisions meet to discuss the most urgent issues facing public education across our city. On the heels of the funding of schools announcement for the 2023-2024 school year, the focus of a recent meeting centred on the challenges facing school boards as they work to draft budgets that meet the needs of their school divisions.

With all in agreement that current inflationary pressures had not been considered, and after years of chronic under-funding, consensus around the table was that we are in a precarious and unsustainable position in trying to meet all of the needs within our respective school divisions with funding that doesn’t allow us to do so.

Education Minister Wayne Ewasko labelled the 2023-24 funding commitment as “astronomical.” This is not only misleading, it suggests an ability of school divisions across the province to now look after the needs of all learners fully and completely.

The realities suggest otherwise. School boards continue to address pandemic-related pressures, among others, with funding that has not kept up to inflation.

While the minister, in media reports, touted a 6.1 per cent increase, not a single school division in Winnipeg received an increase above 5.2 per cent. The picture for smaller rural and northern school boards is even more bleak. The only sense in which “astronomical” applies is the monumental and negative impacts that many school divisions must navigate as they weather the budget storm.

As an example, since September 2022, River East-Transcona School Division (RETSD) has welcomed close to 800 new students and in Louis Riel School Division (LRSD), that number is well over 500. A significant number of these learners require clinical supports that are not readily available, owing to staff shortages that lead to unprecedented wait times for much needed expertise and services.

Increasing immigration and the building of new communities means these needs are here for the foreseeable future. How do we meet the needs of these students when the gap between what school boards need and what we have to meet those needs is a collective $500 million?

Consider, also, that with each school board in Manitoba having accurate and current documentation of the infrastructure deficits in their divisions, a provincial audit of our aging buildings would reveal a repair price tag in the hundreds of millions. The cost for much-needed, and promised, new schools is also in the hundreds of millions.

We are all wondering the same thing: when will funding reflect what is needed in the K-12 system, and where exactly is this money going to come from?

Meanwhile, school divisions are looking for ways to make the funding work: adjusting bell times to stretch the shrinking capacity of bus fleets; continuing to provide food and nutrition programs in support of students experiencing poverty; replacing boilers and plugging roof leaks in response to the ongoing need for repairs.

When increased enrolment is immediately supported, pandemic learning recovery and clinical needs adequately resourced, all infrastructure needs looked after and overall funding becomes both adequate and sustainable, our meetings will have more of a celebratory focus.

However, we did end our meeting on a positive note, by sharing examples of what we celebrate in our respective divisions, thanks to the dedication, creativity, expertise, kindness and commitment of teachers, staff and administrators. From the ongoing advancement of reconciliation to the difference every day makes for the refugee and newcomer students who arrive with their families, we reminded ourselves that funding makes all of it possible.

Without more of the same, however, the celebrations may be short-lived.

Sandy Nemeth is chair of the board of trustees for Louis Riel School Division.