Education resources

Politicians, and their willingness to prioritize their own success over student needs, are hurting our children

Last night I sat through my school division’s 2023–2024 budget presentation. I can tell you it wasn’t good.

We’ve heard from multiple superintendents around our province that this year has brought some of the most difficult budgets in over a decade.

The only “increases” we saw in our funding were temporary grants, not permanent funding — grants which divisions will need to reapply for each year, if they are even available in the future.

It is time for our political representatives to stop ignoring their constituents and respond to our concerns. They must stop placating and regurgitating the same old party lines and start doing their jobs.

My son’s school is bursting at the seams. They are at capacity and the community is growing. They have nowhere for new students to go. They are cutting teacher jobs while the student population increases. Don’t tell us about “historic” and “astronomical” increases.

Our division is 300K in debt and paying ridiculous interest on that debt. We have schools falling apart.

We have some schools where their children are on the bus for more than two hours per day, sitting three to a seat. This is unacceptable.

When my son was 6 and 7 years old, I actually drove him to and from school because I wasn’t comfortable with him being stuck on a bus for two hours each school day. I had the privilege of a flexible schedule, which not every family/parent has.

That was four years ago and we’re still hearing of the same issues.

Our division’s wait times for psychological assessment increased from approximately six months to 2–3 years. What’s the point of having these services if a student needs them in grade one and doesn’t get them until grade 4?

Three years is a signifiant amount of time in the life and development of a child. So much changes in 2–3 years, especially when they’re young. So much important learning needs to happen in the early years, it’s not okay to leave students struggling for so long.

Other schools in our division are losing teachers, or teacher hours. In another school which is experiencing a lot of growth, they’ve had to cut one teacher position, which will likely lead to all (or nearly all) their classes being split-grade classes.

It’s been difficult enough for teachers to provide adequate support and differentiation for a single grade class full of students with significant varieties of skills, interests, learning styles, and needs. Now we’ll have even larger class sizes with even greater differences amongst the students.

It’s untenable and unsustainable.

Teachers and school staff are already leaving the profession in larger numbers than ever before, and our government’s response is to put even more pressure on them.

Perhaps this is what needs to happen for us to finally give our public education system the massive overhaul it truly needs.

I doubt it.

We’re in an election year and I anticipate a change in government in the Fall, so not only will we have to deal with the fallout from poor leadership over the past four years, we’ll then have to adapt and adjust to whatever changes the new party in power decides to enact.

I’m tired and I don’t even work in schools on a regular basis.

I’ve been expressing my concerns to our current minister of education for more than one year, since his appointment to the position. I expressed concerns to his predecessors.

I’ve been largely ignored, save for one or two form responses which did not actually answer questions I asked, and regurgitated the same old party lines.

I was once contacted by a representative from Minister Wayne Ewasko’s team and we arranged a virtual meeting. That person was lovely, they were professional and kind, but they have no political sway.

The minister delegated that person to “deal with” me (my words, not theirs), hoping to placate me and make me feel listened to. As wonderful as that person was, what’s the point in their hearing my concerns, when they don’t have the authority to affect change?

We need organized groups, letter-writing campaigns, and to share information on social media.

We need large numbers of us to show our representatives in government that these are politically important issues, that enough families care about our children’s education to make a difference in the upcoming election.

Because apparently these “leaders” don’t care about our children unless it impacts their jobs and positions of power, so that’s what we’ll do.

Jillian Enright, CYW, BA Psych.

Neurodiversity Manitoba