Maintenance isn’t enough — we have to build

For the third year in a row, the atmosphere in Manitoba’s staffrooms during the provincial school funding announcement has been one of cautious relief rather than the dread we came to expect for a decade.

As a high school teacher-librarian and a parent with a child in the public system, I want to begin by acknowledging the progress made.

After the lean, adversarial years of the Brian Pallister and Heather Stefanson governments, years defined by the looming threat of Bill 64 and funding increases that didn’t even cover the cost of a box of pencils, the current NDP government has chosen a different path.

This $79.8-million injection for the 2026-27 school year, building on the $104-million and $67-million investments of the previous two years, represents nearly a quarter-billion-dollar shift in how we value our children’s future. For the nutrition programs, the salary harmonization, and the simple act of treating educators as partners rather than enemies: thank you.

However, we are now three years into this mandate, and while the “bleeding” may have slowed, the patient is still in critical condition. In our classrooms and hallways, the 3.5 per cent increase announced for this year doesn’t feel like an “investment,” it feels like a maintenance budget designed to keep us merely alive, instead of being able to thrive.

To a parent, $2 billion sounds like a staggering sum. But to a teacher looking at a Grade 10 English class of 32 students, the math tells a different story. Much of this “new” money is immediately spoken for by rising operational costs, heating heritage buildings, skyrocketing insurance premiums, and the necessary cost-of-living adjustments for the staff who keep our schools running.

When the funding increase for a division like Pembina Trails sits at 1.2 per cent, or St. James-Assiniboia at 1.6 per cent, these divisions are not “thriving.” They are being forced to make the same heartbreaking trade-offs we saw five years ago. They are choosing between a school psychologist and an educational assistant. They are deciding which high school elective to cut so they can keep early-years class sizes from ballooning past 25.

As a teacher-librarian, I have a front-row seat to the erosion of the “human infrastructure” in our schools. During the austerity years, the library was often the first place to be hollowed out. Teacher-librarians were redeployed to classrooms, and library technicians saw their hours slashed until the “heart of the school” became little more than a book repository.

But we are not just “the people who check out books.” We are the specialists who teach digital literacy, research skills, and critical thinking in an age of AI and misinformation. When we lose teacher-librarians and library techs, we lose the bridge between the classroom and the world.

The same can be said for our clinicians. Parents across Manitoba are still waiting months for their children to see a school psychologist or a speech-language pathologist. We have students in our early-years classrooms who are struggling with profound needs, yet there aren’t enough educational assistants to ensure they and their classmates can learn in a safe, calm environment.

As a parent, I don’t want my children to attend a school that is simply “stable.” I want them to attend a school where they can thrive.

Stability means the lights are on. Thriving means there is a teacher-librarian to guide their curiosity, a clinician to support their mental health, and a classroom size that allows their teacher to know who they are.

We elected this government to fix the damage of the past, not just to manage it more politely. Fixing the damage means recognizing that we are starting from a deficit created by a decade of neglect. A 3.5 per cent increase assumes we are starting from a healthy baseline. We aren’t. We are starting from a place of crowded high school classrooms, overworked specialists, and a desperate shortage of support staff.

Education Minister Tracy Schmidt, we see the work you are doing. We are grateful that you have ended the era of “doing more with less.” But as we look toward the 2026-27 school year, our plea is for boldness.

Manitobans gave you a mandate to rebuild. Rebuilding requires more than just covering the cost of inflation; it requires a targeted, massive reinvestment in the people who make learning possible. It means specifically funding the return of teacher-librarians and technicians to every school. It means a dedicated fund to lower class sizes so that no high school teacher is staring down a sea of 35 faces. It means ensuring that “universal support” includes the clinicians and EAs who allow every child to access their education.

You have the support of Manitobans. We want you to succeed because when you succeed, our children thrive. But we cannot rebuild the heart of our communities on a maintenance budget. Let’s move beyond the 3.5 per cent mirage and start funding the education system Manitobans were promised, and the one our children deserve.

Sean Giesbrecht is a teacher-librarian.