The leader of Manitoba’s largest school division is asking principals to pause fundraisers to address program inequities across inner-city and central Winnipeg.
“If we begin to say that certain schools can have big bank accounts and certain schools can’t, then that creates a situation that is ultimately inequitable and unfair,” Matt Henderson, chief superintendent of the Winnipeg School Division, said.
The practice, usually led by volunteer-run parent advisory councils, has historically resulted in disparities between educational offerings for students from higher-income neighbourhoods and their peers, he said.
Matt Henderson, chief superintendent of the Winnipeg School Division, says senior administration plans to propose the board of trustees update internal policies to formalize the
phasing-out of ‘unfettered fundraising’ later this year.
Henderson said senior administration plans to propose the board of trustees update internal policies to formalize the phasing-out of “unfettered fundraising” later this year.
He has repeatedly spoken about his big-picture goal of making schools “sticky” and reducing barriers to participation in public schools since he was hired in August 2023.
At the end of his first school year in charge, he asked the division’s budget officer to pick two middle schools at random to compare the number of field trips they ran in 2023-24.
River Heights School ran 16 trips, excluding sports travel, ski and band trips and camps, last year. Isaac Newton School — located at one of the division’s northernmost sites, near Burrows Avenue and Arlington Street — made only five excursions.
The difference speaks to the inequity that fundraising creates, Henderson said, adding he does not want to shame anyone but rather act on his belief that school budgets should cover trips — what he considers to be a basic educational experience.
“We have progressive taxes in Canada to distribute wealth and, sometimes, we have programs and all sorts of things to ensure that everybody has the means to a decent life,” Henderson said.
“If we’re not replicating that in school divisions, then there’s a problem.”
Trustees voted to set aside divisional funding to upgrade elementary school playgrounds — previously parent-led projects — at Shaughnessy Park, Wellington, Prairie Rose and River Elm — in their 2024-25 budget in March.
Principals have been asked to think twice about charging for daytime excursions and lunch programs this fall, and to no longer send back-to-school supply lists home — and in lieu of doing so, buy learning materials in bulk to lower costs for families.
The division is in the process of scrapping lunch fees and taking over the staffing of break periods at elementary schools instead of relying on parent councils to organize adult supervision.
Ahead of the back-to-school season, People for Public Education published a report on current kindergarten-to-Grade 12 parent, guardian and student experiences with school fundraising.
Fifty-six people participated in an exploratory study that was circulated online in May via social media and members of the progressive advocacy group made up of local teachers, researchers and allies.
More than half of respondents indicated their school would struggle to provide important learning resources and opportunities without fundraising.
A third disclosed that donations were used to cover school “essentials” in their community.
“We worry about the ways in which basics are now starting to be considered extras,” Shannon Moore, an organizer and assistant professor of education at the University of Manitoba, said.
“Our society is actually manufacturing consent for a change in funding by saying, ‘It’s OK that extracurricular activities, grad celebrations, yard enhancements, supplies for learning are now needing to be funded through fundraising.’”
The group defined fundraising as efforts to collect money and resources to supplement school divisions’ operating dollars — not to be confused with raising money for external charities, such as the Terry Fox Foundation.
People for Public Education wanted to highlight how fundraising is, in and of itself, exclusionary because only individuals with free time and who can afford to do unpaid labour can participate, Moore said.
Neither the Manitoba Association of Parent Councils or Winnipeg Teachers’ Association responded to requests for comment Friday.
Asked about the role of parent councils when fundraising and lunch programs are taken out of the equation, Henderson said it needs to be “redefined” and there will always be a need for community input in local schools.
Maggie Macintosh
Education reporter
Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Free Press. Originally from Hamilton, Ont., Maggie was an intern at the Free Press twice while earning her degree at Ryerson’s School of Journalism (now Toronto Metropolitan University) before joining the newsroom as a reporter in 2019. Read more about Maggie.
Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative.
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