The Prairie Spirit School Division has great concern for the provincial Bill 64 that will change the current school division system in Manitoba.

Board chair Jan McIntyre presented to RM of Portage la Prairie council this week.

She noted that the division is quite large and borders the United States and runs north to Glenboro and across to St. Claude. Its 5,600 square kilometres cross some territory in the RM of Portage.

"What's interesting, too, in regards to this is that Bill 64 does not really reflect the recommendations in the Education Review report, which did consult with Manitobans across the spectrum quite considerably," says McIntyre. "So, the focus seems to be more on saving money and on standardized testing, that sort of thing, which are important, but contrary basically to what the educational review report said."

She notes she came to address the poor international test results and what they say are high administration costs in school divisions.

"To give you some context for that, the truth is that in reading, math and science, eight out of ten Manitoba students meet or exceed expectations, which is true of every other province. And that Canada as a whole is the best performing nation in the world among English speaking countries. One factor that Bill 64 does not address is the impact of child poverty on education. Child poverty is probably the leading indicator of poor academic performance and, unfortunately, Manitoba is one of the leaders in child poverty in our nation. If you look at the national child poverty rate, it's about 18.2 per cent. And our rate in Manitoba is 28.3 per cent, second only to Nunavut at 32.4."

McIntyre notes this bill does not address that in any way.

"The two out of ten students who aren't meeting expectations are those who come from the most economically deprived households," adds McIntyre. "Bill 64 does not aim savings at the poorest households. There's no detail on this supposed $40 million of savings where it will come from or how it will be used to enhance student outcomes."

She spoke about school division administration levels in their budgets and explained their opinion about governance and school closures.

"We have a number of small schools in Prairie Spirit, and we feel that they are at risk with this new legislation," continues McIntyre. "Currently, the local school board made up of trustees living in the communities, make school closure decisions. There has been a provincial moratorium in place for several years. But with that, there have been some school closures that have occurred where there's been 100 per cent community support. That's pretty much been the requirement with the school. With the moratorium in place, Bill 64 takes the school closure moratorium away and leaves the decisions completely in the hands of the Provincial Education Authority. So, there will be no community input into school closure decisions."

McIntyre says bussing is also a concern, as well as parent participation that the province alleges is meant to see them involved more.

"Basically, we're very concerned about this Bill," says McIntyre. "And we feel that it's going to have huge impacts on our rural communities -- perhaps not right in Portage la Prairie. You will have community schools that will stay open, but there will be others that will be closed. I ask you to consider the economic impact on communities where schools have been closed. Towns dry up when schools are closed. The truth of the matter is the fabric of rural Manitoba can be irreversibly altered by this Bill through this school closure potential and the loss of economic impact for our community businesses as well."

McIntyre asked the council to talk about these issues amongst its communities that they get better informed, and to speak with Minister Cliff Cullen, and take it up with the AMM. She then invited them to come to their monthly stakeholder meetings.