Pembina Trails adds staff in $206-M draft budget

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This article was published 17/02/2023 (1187 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Pembina Trails School Division is proposing a significant hiring spree ahead of 2023-24, alongside the end of its full-day kindergarten and a minor adjustment to high school class sizes to balance its budget.

Trustees approved the release of the board’s spending blueprint for the upcoming school year during a brief public meeting Thursday.

The $206-million draft budget prioritizes the addition of more staff to meet surging enrolment in Winnipeg’s south end. If approved as is, nearly 29 more full-time equivalent teachers will be hired for the fall.

“It’s been challenging over the past years to meet the growth in the school division; we’re projected to welcome over 650 children into our schools next year,” said board chairman Tim Johnson, who represents Ward 2 in Pembina Trails.

The veteran trustee categorized this budget as “favourable,” given it sets out to employ a significant number of employees to address particular pressures related to growth at Bison Run School, up and running as of January, and Pembina Trails Collegiate’s grand opening in September.

The board plans to add about 16 full-time equivalent educational assistants and 20 full-time equivalent non-teaching staff, including school clinicians, in 2023-24.

Elementary classes are maintained in the proposal, although the division is looking at increasing its ratio of senior years teachers and students, Johnson said.

Pembina Trails’ official increase in provincial operating and capital revenue is $10.7 million, up 5.5 per cent from 2022-23 levels, according to a Friday news release.

The release, which indicates funding does not match enrolment growth, increased fixed costs, or anticipated salary settlements, states the average homeowner’s school tax bill will decrease by $5 because the province has frozen the levy at 2020 levels.

The province has provided all boards with a grant that’s the equivalent of a two per cent hike in their local taxes — a sum of roughly $6.9 million in Pembina Trails — as government leaders work to phase out the fee entirely and update the public education funding formula.

“Our students deserve a budget with enough funding to provide the resources they need to succeed. Rapid enrolment growth continues in our division and the needs of our students have also become more diverse,” said Lise Legal, president of the Pembina Trails Teachers’ Association, in a statement.

Pembina Trails welcomed more students than any other metro division in Manitoba last year, coming in second place overall, after the Frontier School Division. Its student population just surpassed 16,000.

Legal said the association is reviewing the draft budget and plans to communicate its priorities to the division in the coming weeks.

“It is clear that six years of underfunding by the province has made it increasingly difficult to meet growing student needs,” the union leader said, adding provincial funding needs to be equitable, predictable and stable.

In recent budgets, funding constraints prompted the board to halt a preparatory kindergarten program, end a choral program and freeze building maintenance projects, among other reductions.

The latest draft budget includes discontinuing full-time kindergarten at Westgrove School so, per a news release, the division can focus on taking a broad approach to literacy, numeracy, emotional regulation and student well-being.

When reached by phone Friday, Johnson said the board wants to continue supporting pre-kindergarten summer programming and ongoing recovery learning, including resources for literacy, student regulation and well-being, following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and related disruptions.

“Investments in clinical supports, including speech language pathology, occupational therapy, and social work, will further address our post-pandemic needs,” the chairman said.

The public can weigh in on the budget proposals by submitting comments via email or signing up to present as a delegation at the board’s Feb. 23 meeting.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie