Boost in home-schooling won’t affect school funding: province By: Maggie Macintosh Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Wednesday, Sep. 30, 2020

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This article was published 30/09/2020 (1584 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The provincial government has promised there will be no change in funding to public schools next year because more families are keeping their children home due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Manitoba Education is aware there has been an increase in families deciding to home-school this year, which may disproportionately (affect) some school divisions more than others,” a provincial spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday, the annual school headcount day.

The spokesperson added the province is working with divisions to ensure next year’s funding is not affected by fall 2020 enrolment figures.

Each year, Sept. 30 is when Manitoba’s 37 school divisions submit their respective enrolment data to the province. The education department analyzes the figures, assesses increases and decreases in each division, and allocates funds accordingly in the following year’s budget.

With that in mind, public school families who have temporarily chosen home-school until they feel a return to the classroom is safe for their children, panicked about the implications of their decision Wednesday.

“Manitoba Education is aware there has been an increase in families deciding to home-school this year, which may disproportionately (affect) some school divisions more than others.”
– Provincial spokesperson

So much so, Charmaine Bloomfield called her son’s school in the morning to find out if she could drop him off for attendance and then take him home. Bloomfield said a return to the classroom wasn’t an option for her son, given his grandparents’ underlying health conditions, and he did not immediately qualify for remote learning.

The answer she said she received Wednesday was that the Grade 7 student, who hasn’t stepped foot in public school since last winter, had been given a “(home-school) code” and could not be part of the headcount.

“It seems disingenuous for us to act as though we are homeschooling when in reality, we’d like to still be part of the division. I’d like to know that our division is going to have the funding for my child when… it’s safe to send him back,” said Bloomfield, whose family has yet to officially sign up for home-schooling, in the hopes of still being a part of Seine River School Division from afar this year.

Superintendent Michael Borgfjord said upwards of 200 students in the division south of Winnipeg, which stretches from St. Norbert to La Broquerie, are currently doing home-school. That’s double the typical count in Seine River in any given year.

“It seems disingenuous for us to act as though we are homeschooling when in reality, we’d like to still be part of the division. I’d like to know that our division is going to have the funding for my child when… it’s safe to send him back.”
– Charmaine Bloomfield, parent in the Seine River School Division

For the most part, Borgfjord said the families are located in the southeast section of the division near Steinbach and Ste. Anne.

“Some people are really nervous and aren’t sure how long this is going to last. We’ve said to everybody they can come back whenever they want, so if they decide in January, February, March that they’re ready to come back to school, we’d be happy to have them,” he said.

As of Sept. 30, 2019, Seine River counted 4,481 students in 15 schools — a drop of 32 pupils since the fall of 2018.

In Manitoba, the K-12 public school system is funded through both the province and divisional property taxes. The province distributes operating funds based on a formula that takes into account overall student numbers, population density, transportation demands and the enrolment of students with special needs.

On Wednesday, the Manitoba NDP held a news conference to stress the importance of not using mid-pandemic enrolment figures to determine future public education funding. Leader Wab Kinew said the party would like to see funding rise based on inflation and population growth.

This year, for the third year in a row, public education received a $6.6-million boost (a 0.5 per cent increase) in provincial funding, totalling $1.33 billion. The NDP has called the sum a “de facto cut” because it doesn’t meet inflation.

On the province’s promise about 2021-22 funding, the president of the Manitoba School Boards Association said he appreciates the government’s approach, which will allow boards to budget with consistency.

Alan Campbell added that while home-school enrolment is “marginally higher” than in previous years, “(parents) far and wide, are choosing public education as their first preference.”

— With files from Larry Kusch

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie

Maggie Macintosh
Reporter

Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Winnipeg Free Press. Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative.

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