Letter to MLAs for Dauphin and Swan River from Parents and Concerned Citizens in the Frontier, Mountain View, Turtle River and Swan Valley School Divisions about Bill 64 -The Education Modernization Act                

Please review this important letter to the local MLAs for the Dauphin and Swan River provincial ridings in Manitoba.

 If you have concerns about Bill 64 being passed into law in the Fall of 2021 in Manitoba, please sign this letter (using the form below).  Also, please circulate this letter to other parents and concerned citizens in the Frontier, Mountain View, Turtle River and Swan Valley School Divisions.

This letter will be delivered to our local MLAs this summer, and a meeting will be requested to discuss these issues. Students in our K-12 schools and families in our rural communities will be directly harmed by the changes that our provincial government is proposing with this new educational legislation, Bill 64.

Thank you,

PLEASE NOTE:

Your full name, school division and postal code will be listed on the letter when it is delivered to our MLA (randomized in order of appearance). This letter may also be made public through distribution to media outlets and social media.

***Individual emails will NOT be distributed or shared in any manner.***

Questions? Send your email to - parentsforpubliceducationMB@gmail.com

You can also follow this grassroots campaign on Facebook                                                                                          @ Parents for Public Education MB
https://www.facebook.com/groups/882404448964800

________________________________________________________________________________________

Brad Michaleski, MLA for Dauphin
Brad.Michaleski@leg.gov.mb.ca

Rick Wowchuk, MLA for Swan River
rick.wowchuk@leg.gov.mb.ca

July 12, 2021

Dear Brad Michaleski and Rick Wowchuk,

We are writing to express our deep concerns about the provincial government's proposed new educational legislation, Bill 64 – The Education Modernization Act, which is scheduled to be passed into law during the fall session of the Manitoba Legislature in October 2021.

As parents, taxpayers and residents, who care about the future of our K-12 public schools for our children and for our communities, we urge you to examine Bill 64 and consider the very negative consequences this proposed legislation will have on our rural communities in Manitoba. We are asking you, as our elected representative, to do everything in your power to stop this legislation in its present form from passing into law.

After examining this proposed legislation carefully during the past few months, there are four major problems, that we as citizens are concerned about, with Bill 64:

1) LACK OF DEMOCRATIC LOCAL DECISION-MAKING

The democratic rights of all taxpayers to have input into their local schools communities through elected representation (via their local school trustee) is being removed and replaced with:

a) NEW School Community Councils at every K-12 school in MB (with an advisory role only) composed of parent volunteers only.

b) One NEW Provincial Education Authority Board (composed of 6-11 appointed, partisan representatives) with all decision-making authority for public K-12 education in MB.  

Local decision-making about public education will be removed, without regard for the diverse needs of rural schools in Manitoba. This is NOT a plan to amalgamate smaller school divisions into larger ones, and maintain the role of school trustees/school boards in the management of our K-12 schools. Instead. elected school trustees and local school boards will be entirely eliminated in Manitoba.

Fifteen new regions will be created under Bill 64. The recent K-12 Education Commission did NOT recommend eliminating school trustees and school boards. Instead this report recommended keeping school boards in Manitoba and "consolidating the existing school boards into six to eight regional school boards, as well as requirements that there will be both appointed and elected trustees."

https://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/educationreview/docs/public-discussion-paper.pdf

All other provinces in Canada (except Nova Scotia at the moment) are retaining the role of school trustees and school boards. In New Brunswick and PEI, where school boards had been abolished, they have been brought back due to necessity to maintain local decision-making about education.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-school-board-elected-education-1.5383650?fbclid=IwAR33Merz8W8vf-eVCe58zb-4DoH6Jx1OE0JexN4rqu8srmUSIiEnqjG6C0g

Without school trustees, parents are struggling in Nova Scotia and have nowhere to turn. Parents on the new Parent Advisory Council on Education in Nova Scotia do not have the training or time that paid elected school trustees had in the past, to advocate for and advise other parents on the school system.

https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/commentary/fast-facts-nova-scotia-education-overhaul-cautionary-tale-manitoba

2) UNREASONABLE ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES FOR PARENT VOLUNTEERS

Expecting parents to volunteer and carry out the extensive duties outlined in Bill 64 is unreasonable and demands skills that many parents are not necessarily trained for - such as hiring staff, evaluations of staff and programs, capital expenditures, annual budget planning, and providing guidance and advice on academic curriculum and programming.

See Section 84(3) in: https://web2.gov.mb.ca/bills/42-3/b064e.php#A84

Many schools already have difficulty finding parent volunteers for parent councils at local schools, because parents are busy parenting and working in their communities. Parent volunteers naturally come and go (due to changes in their work and family lives) and are unable to provide the kind of sustained commitment that is required to manage and guide our K-12 public schools. We need to retain school board leaders (not replace them with volunteers) due to their educational expertise and ability to manage these type of responsibilities.

Under Bill 64, it is being proposed that new Parent Engagement Officers will be hired to support parent volunteers on School Community Councils. These paid positions will cost our government a substantial amount of money, preventing the 40 million dollars in savings (from the elimination of the salaries of school trustees and the administration costs of local school boards) that our government is suggesting will occur with this new plan.

Parents currently have a democratically elected school trustee who can speak impartially for them, help develop school policies, make decisions about hiring and budget planning. We do not need to replace school trustees with School Community Councils made up of volunteers. We know our school trustees care about and work together to represent us and the particular needs of rural schools and communities.

3) CLOSURE OF RURAL SCHOOLS AND ELIMINATION OF LOCAL PROGRAMMING

Bill 64 also opens the door for the closure of smaller schools in rural Manitoba, removes the one-hour/one way maximum bus ride limit currently in place, and lifts the current moratorium on school closures in Manitoba. When schools close, communities die. Good jobs disappear when divisional offices and K-12 schools close. Families leave communities that are far from their designated school, to avoid long school bus rides and to be closer to their children’s school environment.

Centralized decision-making over budgets and school funding will also remove control over local programs and will result in centralized purchasing/contracts thereby harming local businesses that provide goods and services to our K-12 schools in the Frontier, Mountain View, Turtle River and Swan Valley School Divisions. A centralized funding model will reduce local decision-making and planning, leading to reduced services, increased class sizes, and school closures in rural Manitoba.

4) BILL 64 WILL NOT IMPROVE STUDENT ACADEMIC SUCCESS

Replacing democratically elected school boards with alternative structures does not improve student achievement. Our provincial government is proposing that Bill 64, with an increase in the use of standardized testing, will improve student outcomes in Manitoba. Standardized testing can identify students who are struggling, but is not in itself a means to improving student success.

Locally developed school programming improves the success of struggling students, because it is based on the specific needs of each community. This proposed legislation will do the opposite of what our government is suggesting.  Local control will be taken away by the new governance model being proposed in Bill 64. There is nothing in this legislation to ensure that resources and funding will be provided to support innovative local projects and increased course options for our rural students.

5) CONCLUSION

After a year of pandemic struggles and fatigue, parents and citizens demand that our government reconsider these major and substantial changes to public education in Manitoba. This legislation has been rushed into development, during the most difficult time in our provincial government’s history, even before the Report of the Commission on K-12 Education was released to the public. A more measured and cautious approach to education reform is required now more than ever.

We ask that our government waits for some measure of normalcy to return to families, schools, teachers, and our communities. We need a stable, well-funded, public school system with experienced paid staff to support our children's recovery from their experience of the pandemic; an approach that will protect local democracy and local programs; an approach that will not destabilize rural communities; an approach that will truly serve the best interests of our children and their families.

We ask that you, along with your other colleagues in the legislature, vote against Bill 64 as it is currently proposed, when it is tabled again in the legislature in October 2021, as our democratically elected representatives in our provincial government.

Sincerely,


*Signatories list will be randomized for order

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***PLEASE DO NOT FILL OUT TWICE

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