government mandated standard report cards and inservice days

"r, sometimes these closure days are counted as inservice days."

I have never ever seen that happen. EVER, doing so would probably violate the collective agreement.

Deank wrote:"r, sometimes these closure days are counted as inservice days."

I have never ever seen that happen. EVER, doing so would probably violate the collective agreement.

We're not talking WSD. I'm talking rural divisions. And I have seen that happen. Because there is a mandated minimum number of teaching days required. And because you can't start until after labour day, and most schools end the day before the last day of june, the other option would be to have a school day on the weekend.

Now that would be an uproar.

I've only seen it once, and I think it was one day.

I know.. not WSD.. they never close because of weather ( stupid stupid stupid that tehy dont close)

But I lived up north, I have relatives who live in Flood river valley... not once have I seen it.

Deank wrote:Oh I think we need some level of school boards. I just dont understand why we have so many. Winnipeg should be one school board. Schools should receive funding strictly based on the student population and demographics ( ie some schools have higher needs students).

The school board should still be elected, but in essence to ensure that the schools all work properly.. ie instead of merely hiring another level of government people to do it, then they would at least be somewhat accountable.

Thank you. I have been perplexed and confused as to why one city has umpteen different boards. It's confusing and hard to navigate.

A couple of other points:

Standardizing inservice days may make things actually more difficult for parents. Lets look at P/T days for example. You have 3 kids, one in elementary, one in Jr High, on in Sr. High. Staggered inservice days mean you can see all kids teachers for P/T interviews as you work during the day. Not possible, or very difficult to do with standardized inservice which means trying to get 3 meetings at different schools on the same night. Also the number of P/T reporting days vary from school level to school level ( more at early years, less at later years)


As for standardized reporting, this means a move to strictly a letter grade system. The Education minister has issued a directive to eliminate percentage grades for all grades below grade 8.

CitizenSourpuss wrote:

Deank wrote:Oh I think we need some level of school boards. I just dont understand why we have so many. Winnipeg should be one school board. Schools should receive funding strictly based on the student population and demographics ( ie some schools have higher needs students).

The school board should still be elected, but in essence to ensure that the schools all work properly.. ie instead of merely hiring another level of government people to do it, then they would at least be somewhat accountable.

Thank you. I have been perplexed and confused as to why one city has umpteen different boards. It's confusing and hard to navigate.

Multiple school boards seem to be the norm rather than the exception.

It appears that Manitoba has the same if not less than the amount of school boards in other provinces.

In some cases it isn't a direct comparison. For example, in Manitoba, most catholic schools are private (additional cost) while in other provinces they may be private but no additional cost ( you designate your education tax dollars to catholic schools)

Also in some provinces, while there may be one school board for a certain city ( Vancouver) there are also school boards for the bedroom communities ( Burnaby, N. van, W.Van, Richmond). Which is pretty much the same as Winnipeg prior to Unicity.

Oh, and that example that most love to hold up (Calgary Board of Education), look in practice to actually 5 separate school boards brought together under one "umbrella"

Can we do a better job of school boards? Sure.

Can we function with less? Yes, and the last time the NDP gov't forced amalgamation, it was really poorly done.

But it's not the abnormality that a lot of people paint it to be.

None-the-less I'd like to see one school board in the WCR.

Well, you could probably have one school board in theory, but it would probably operate like Calgary or Toronto's does.

One elected board, but essentially multiple administrations (eg. Toronto has 22 wards and 22 superintendents)

I think while unwieldy it would still be preferable. One maintenance department. One finance department. One headquarters. Etc...

grumpy old man wrote:I think while unwieldy it would still be preferable. One maintenance department. One finance department. One headquarters. Etc...

Yeah, but they don't have that.

Look at Calgary. Essentially they have 5 school divisions ( except they call them wards).

Each ward has a superintendant, head office, transportation, etc.

I think it would be akin to getting rid of the elected school boards here, and only electing one for the city but keeping every other aspect of our current system the same and then saying we have one school division.

Not sure I see the value in that. Looks like they made a political decision, optics-wise, and then made a bureaucratic decision, lack-of-nads-wise, with everything else.

Sounds like something our elected officials would do. Well, probably all elected officials would act in that manner.

St Norberter wrote:Well, you could probably have one school board in theory, but it would probably operate like Calgary or Toronto's does.

One elected board, but essentially multiple administrations (eg. Toronto has 22 wards and 22 superintendents)

WSD1 alone has 9 trustees. why?

oh because we have 3 wards and you cant have two trustees per ward.. who would break a tie??


oh wait that DOES NOT ACTUALLY MATTER... because certain political partys run teams of 3 candidates in each ward.

Funny thing...with the largest, or second largest budget item in the province, we have almost no knowledge or understanding of how our trustees spend education dollars.

That has to change imo. I'm tending to think the province needs to take back control of the dollars as the various boards spend like drunken sailors. There's a huge disconnect between taxpayers and their money where education matters are concerned.

St Norberter wrote:

CitizenSourpuss wrote:

Deank wrote:Oh I think we need some level of school boards. I just dont understand why we have so many. Winnipeg should be one school board. Schools should receive funding strictly based on the student population and demographics ( ie some schools have higher needs students).

The school board should still be elected, but in essence to ensure that the schools all work properly.. ie instead of merely hiring another level of government people to do it, then they would at least be somewhat accountable.

Thank you. I have been perplexed and confused as to why one city has umpteen different boards. It's confusing and hard to navigate.

Multiple school boards seem to be the norm rather than the exception.

It appears that Manitoba has the same if not less than the amount of school boards in other provinces.

In some cases it isn't a direct comparison. For example, in Manitoba, most catholic schools are private (additional cost) while in other provinces they may be private but no additional cost ( you designate your education tax dollars to catholic schools)

Also in some provinces, while there may be one school board for a certain city ( Vancouver) there are also school boards for the bedroom communities ( Burnaby, N. van, W.Van, Richmond). Which is pretty much the same as Winnipeg prior to Unicity.

Oh, and that example that most love to hold up (Calgary Board of Education), look in practice to actually 5 separate school boards brought together under one "umbrella"

Can we do a better job of school boards? Sure.

Can we function with less? Yes, and the last time the NDP gov't forced amalgamation, it was really poorly done.

But it's not the abnormality that a lot of people paint it to be.

See, I can understand the individual boards in Burnaby, West Van, Coquitlam etc. They are individual municipalities that have their own services, taxation, governments etc. They're not unified in the sense of Unicity (or in Toronto, Metro) so they function independently. When I go and sell my house in River Heights and buy a pre-fab box in Sage Creek, I'm now in another school division, with a different game plan, even though I'm still in Winnipeg. Again, I'm not from here, but it seems like overkill to me. Maybe I'll change my mind in a few years after living here. My input is strictly based on Vancouver/Toronto living at this point.

JTF wrote:

That has to change imo. I'm tending to think the province needs to take back control of the dollars as the various boards spend like drunken sailors. There's a huge disconnect between taxpayers and their money where education matters are concerned.

And that's different from the government spending like drunken sailors, how?

Remember, this is the same gov't that gave nurses a contract that guaranteed a raise if another province bumped our nurses below 4th nationally.

CitizenSourpuss wrote:

See, I can understand the individual boards in Burnaby, West Van, Coquitlam etc. They are individual municipalities that have their own services, taxation, governments etc. They're not unified in the sense of Unicity (or in Toronto, Metro) so they function independently. When I go and sell my house in River Heights and buy a pre-fab box in Sage Creek, I'm now in another school division, with a different game plan, even though I'm still in Winnipeg. Again, I'm not from here, but it seems like overkill to me. Maybe I'll change my mind in a few years after living here. My input is strictly based on Vancouver/Toronto living at this point.

But the single school boards in Toronto and Calgary are pretty much name only. Functionality wise the wards are the equivalent of our school boards.

And don't forget catholic school boards in Ontario. These are publicly funded schools operating under a separate school board.

Catholic schools in MB are defined as privately funded schools.

St Norberter wrote:

JTF wrote:

That has to change imo. I'm tending to think the province needs to take back control of the dollars as the various boards spend like drunken sailors. There's a huge disconnect between taxpayers and their money where education matters are concerned.

And that's different from the government spending like drunken sailors, how?

Remember, this is the same gov't that gave nurses a contract that guaranteed a raise if another province bumped our nurses below 4th nationally.

Huge difference.

Think about the last time the province wanted to raise taxes. Plus, each year the province introduces a budget that is debated.

When was the last time anyone questioned, much less debated, a school board raise...never mind their bloody outrageous budgets?

Most people cannot name their school trustees, and never hold them accountable.

Just say'n.

they get about 3 non school employees at the budget meetings

...and two of the three are cleaners waiting for the room to empty.

[quote="St Norberter"]

CitizenSourpuss wrote:

And don't forget catholic school boards in Ontario. These are publicly funded schools operating under a separate school board.

Catholic schools in MB are defined as privately funded schools.

The private schools in Manitoba are publicly funded to 80% of what the public school system is. So for every $1.00 that for example Fort Richmond Collegiate gets, St John's Ravenscourt gets $.80 of public money and then St John's Ravenscourt, because it is considered private is also allowed to charge for tuition as well as to deny access to students who are deemed "not within the scope of the standards of St John's Ravenscourt's ideal". But because FRC is a public school, they are not allowed to charge a tuition fee to students so they have to "make due" with the money that is allotted to them through taxes. They are also not allowed to deny access to any student (there are certain circumstances that would allow a school to deny a student but the cases are rare and most of the time due to legal responsibility).

This is one of the main reasons you see school divisions raising taxes each year to attempt to maintain parity with the private system but more and more people are choosing to send their kids to private schools, at least during the early and middle school years. So the enrollment in the public system seems to be dropping but you very seldom see the numbers reported in the news of the rise in numbers in the private system because the only people the private system is mandated to report to is the tuition paying population. Even though as a citizen who has no children attending any private school I should be able to go in and see the records. But because I don't have children in private school I am not allowed to see these records, even though part of my tax dollars are going to pay for private school education for the elite. If the province went back to the way it used to be, where private schools were just that, private and tuition driven, I wouldn't have so much of a problem with not being able to see the records of a private school, nor would I have as much of a problem with private schools denying access/admission to "special needs students".

This is one of the main reasons you see school divisions raising taxes each year to attempt to maintain parity with the private system...

Nonsense.

The reason they raise taxes and piss away the money is because they can. They are not in competition with anyone.


It's interesting to see that you give Ravenscourt as an example of a "private" school, instead of say...St. Ignatius or Holy Cross.

Why do you find it interesting that I use Ravenscourt? It is the largest and most prestigious private school in the province and I used it because of it's proximity to Fort Richmond Collegiate. I could have used Faith Academy in Stonewall or St Maurice on Pembina Highway. Regardless of which private school is used as an example, they are very similar in their procedures on acceptance into their schools. The religious based schools get money from 3 different sources, taxes (80% of what public receives), tuition fees charged to the student's family and from the religious institution it is associated with.

As for the public schools not being in competition with anyone, I beg to differ. They are in competition with each other for students as the more students a school has, the more money they get from the division and if the division has more students, they will get more money from the province based on the formula that is presently being used by the provincial government. If a school loses as many as 15 students from June to September, by mid October at the latest, they could lose a teacher and/or educational assistants, as well, putting more stress on the other staff as well adding more kids to one classroom. This is an example of what is possible. You could have 3 classrooms of grade 4 students, 2 may have 24 students and the third may have 18. Then you have a 2 grade 3 classrooms with 23 students in each. What could happen is the third grade 4 classroom could be split up, putting 6 kids into each of the other 2 grade 4 classes and then taking the remaining 6 grade four kids and making one of the grade 3 classrooms into a split grade 3/4. So if schools don't have the numbers, they also don't have the dollars which in turn can amount to not having the desirable programming to attract or maintain students.
When my kids were looking at which high school they were going to go to, they looked at the programming that was being offered by each of the high schools and made their choices based on the programmes that were offered at one over the other. Both of the high schools has similar computer programmes but the one that was the "winner" had a better computer lab with more and updated computers. This was because they had the money to make the upgrades first because they had the student population to demand it. For one of my daughters they also had an all girls programme and the other daughter also took into consideration the sports programming that was offered at each school.

Private schools can do this type of thing because they have the "extra" money from the tuition to attract students by having the latest, updated labs, gyms, facilities. Public schools are not allowed to solicit from the private sector for money to update their gym or computer lab or science lab or phys ed programme. The government looks at this as being unfair if one school were to get a lab sponsored by Coke and another was not able to acquire money through the same/similar request.

You can write a book about it but what you saying is still nonsense.

The competition angle is a ruse to extract more money to spend on salaries and 'special events'.

And to say that private schools have three sources of funding is beyond ridiculous. There is but one taxpayer.

I guess we can agree to disagree on this one. We have 2 different perspectives on how things are handled so I won't argue that your perspective is different than mine is nor will I question where you get your info from.

My knowledge comes from my experience with the system and how the catholic schools are run and from having had children within the public system.


fyi: The Church only kicks in money because they have to...as many people cannot afford to send their children to catholic schools without a subsidy.

Different perspectives indeed.

Well my perspective comes as an insider, being a teacher for many years as well as a parent of 3 children who attended the public school system and as a parent of a child with a mild learning disability who was denied access to a private school because she didn't meet the school's ideal and would have cost the school more money to educate than another student who didn't need to be taught a different method. Even though she didn't require an education assistant, she did require the teacher to be able to teach in a different manner (she is a tactile learner), we were told that it would be too costly to have her attend.