Cranberry Portage parents whose children attend school in Flin Flon want a daily bus run between the two communities, but one trustee worries this could be seen as a “poaching” of students.
Five mothers from Cranberry Portage appeared before the Flin Flon school board Tuesday to ask that a school bus offer transportation to the 19 students who commute from the former community.
Tracy Wheeler-Anderson, one of the mothers, emphasized the importance of the funding the Flin Flon School Division receives by having the Cranberry Portage pupils in its system.
“We know that we are funding teaching positions within the school division as well as programming, because (if) you remove 19 kids out of your school division, obviously that’s teaching positions that are going to be gone, perhaps (educational assistant) positions that are going to be gone, and definitely programming,” she told trustees.
Wheeler-Anderson spoke also of safety and environmental concerns around multiple vehicles from Cranberry Portage travelling to drop off and pick up students at the school division’s existing bus stop at Bakers Narrows.
“At times there are as many as eight vehicles there,” wrote a group of parents in a letter to trustees. “Parents would feel much safer with their children in a big yellow bus versus a small vehicle, especially during the winter season.”
Trustees agreed to consider the parents’ request and notify them of a decision by the second week of November.
Trustee Angela Simpson indicated the board had some careful deliberation ahead.
“We don’t want to see ourselves looked upon as poaching from another school division,” she said. “That’s something I think we take very seriously, and our relationship with Frontier (School Division in Cranberry Portage) is, I believe, a very good one, and so that’s certainly a consideration when this will be discussed.”
Simpson assured the parents that the Flin Flon School Division is “happy to have your students.”
“Quite often the students come here, they excel very well, there’s more blending of communities in terms of sports and these students working together,” she added. “Lots of times your students have different entrepreneurial ideas than the kids in Flin Flon have. I think that has to be taken into consideration.”
Wheeler-Anderson addressed the “poaching” perception by noting that she and another Cranberry Portage parent decided to send their children to Flin Flon entirely on their own accord.
“It certainly wasn’t a push from anyone in Flin Flon, and I don’t think it was that for any of us,” she said. “We made a personal decision as parents that we thought this was best for our children.”
Wheeler-Anderson said the matter need not be a “big bone of contention.”
It’s not clear how much money the Flin Flon School Division would have to spend to send the existing school bus beyond Bakers Narrows to Cranberry Portage. The bus picks up students from cottage subdivisions near Flin Flon but is also open to Cranberry Portage students.
Wheeler-Anderson provided an estimate of under $4,000 a year in added busing costs, but the division did not have a calculation of its own.
Recent years have seen an increasing number of Cranberry Portage students commute to Flin Flon. The students attend high school at Hapnot Collegiate, French immersion at Ecole McIsaac School or, in rare cases, English-language elementary school.
With parents putting the current number of commuting students at 19, Wheeler-Anderson said that figure is projected to grow to 23, if not more, next year.
“The fact that this year we have four Cranberry (Portage) students graduating (in Flin Flon), I think that says something about our commitment to bringing our students here and trying to get them the best academic choices that are out there,” she said.
During the discussion, Wheeler-Anderson suggested education officials explore the possibility of the Flin Flon and Frontier school divisions cooperating to offer a broader range of courses to students from both communities.
She referenced her own experience as a high school student in southern Manitoba. Two neighbouring divisions worked together to offer a level of programming for area students that would not have been possible without a partnership.
This arrangement included a bus that ran three times daily, Wheeler-Anderson said.
