MORRIS, Man. – Owen Jones and two of his older brothers spent the first day of the new school year marching in front of their school division’s offices, chanting slogans, waving placards and demanding change.
“Where’s our bus? Where’s our bus? Where’s our bus?” a crowd of about 50 elementary and high school students and their parents chanted outside the offices of the Red River Valley School Division.
Owen didn’t understand all the complexities of the situation, but he did know that the school division is trying to force him to change schools. And he knows that if his parents switch him from the Kleefeld school to one in St. Malo, he’s going to be spending a lot more time on the bus.
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How long is his present ride to Kleefeld?
“About five minutes,” he said.
How long will the ride to St. Malo be?
“About five hours,” he said, seriously and sadly.
It wouldn’t actually be that long. It would be a 40-50 kilometre ride, but to the children and parents here, school division rules have shaken up their lives.
“It’s not their kids. They don’t care,” said Brenda Jones, Owen’s mother.
The Jones family and some other farming families in the area have been sending their children to an English language elementary school in Kleefeld and an English language high school in Steinbach.
This part of the Red River Valley is primarily French speaking, and most schools teach in French. Until recently it has been impossible to have children educated in English. Kleefeld and Steinbach lie outside of the school division in which they live, but because there wasn’t an English language school in the division, they had the right to be bused to the nearest English schools in the area. For the Joneses, that meant Kleefeld, which is only five km from their dairy farm.
But the former Red River School Division amalgamated with another in 2002, becoming the Red River Valley School Division, and because there is an English language high school in the new division and a new English language elementary program at St. Malo, the parents were told they would have to transfer their children to schools within the division or lose their bus service.
Red River Valley School superintendent Kelly Barkman said the division doesn’t have much choice.
“We’re just following the legislation and the rules set out for us by the government,” said Barkman.
He doesn’t know of any school division in Manitoba that covers the cost of shipping students out of its division to attend school if their program is offered within their own division, he said.
Jones isn’t willing to send her children to the St. Malo program because nine grades of children, from kindergarten to Grade 8, will be put into only two classrooms. One teacher will teach all the students from kindergarten to Grade 4, and Grades 5-9 will be taught by an assortment of teachers, she said.
“I’m not willing to have them experiment on my children,” said Jones.
Some tough decisions loom for her and other farming parents near the Kleefeld school.
They have been offered $345 per child to subsidize alternate busing of their children to Kleefeld, which is allowing them to keep their children at the school.
“That’s only $2 a day. What can you do for $2 a day,” said Jones. Her farm pays more than $3,000 per year in school taxes.
Jones’ dairy farm is a busy place, with all the labour supplied by the family, and it isn’t easy to drive twice a day to pick up and drop off kids at the school, but that’s what she thinks she’ll have to do.
“I’ll drive,” she said.
But she vowed to keep fighting the school division’s policy.
