Trustees Friesen, Barkman head Hanover School Division board

It was the first board meeting of the newly elected trustees on Tuesday, which saw trustee Jeff Friesen elected to serve his third year in a leadership position with the board.

Friesen was elected as chair beating newly elected trustees Erin Williams, Jeremy Neufeld, and Jenn Elliot. All ballots were secret and head positions were decided by a majority of 50 percent plus one. No abstentions were permitted.

“I’m quite happy to serve the community and serve our division like this. Bring a little bit of experience and I’m hoping that again, like I was last time, that somebody will take up the reins and move into chair for next year. But I believe that a good board runs with multiple chairs and multiple experience levels,” said Friesen, adding he is happy to help new trustees by showing them the way things are done.

Elected as vice-chair was trustee Shayne Barkman. It is Barkman’s first time heading council. He beat Tess Doerksen, Cheryl Froese, Neufeld, and Williams.

“Thanks for this meeting, and thanks for everybody’s contributions here tonight. I look forward to working with everybody around the table and I’m excited to get started,” Barkman said to the room after the vote.

In his role as chair, Friesen hopes to govern the conversation and make sure that the trustees are following the bylaws and policies.

“I take that very seriously and we’re in regular communication with our staff, obviously, on every decision, and with our lawyers to make sure we’re doing things legally and properly. Taking meetings with the minister when necessary and bringing information. A chair basically brings information to the board and the board decides,” he said.

Friesen said when he was elected in 2022, he re-introduced to the board the approval of agendas, which he claims were not being done for years. He also said he will empower the trustees to bring their ideas to the table.

Friesen was asked about a split within the board and he said that is a perception in the public and not the reality.

“There’s a lot of perceptions out there that are far from reality, and we witnessed them during the election and a few other things. That’s not really what’s happening. We’re really on one page, and that is, and we discussed it here earlier, is we’re here to help the kids and help our division grow,” he said.

He was asked if the board will go back to a place of normalcy where social issues and challenging the province on policies and motions would not be issues this term. The mature minor motion and Policy AK – Responsible Use of School Resources, were examples given by the media that he and the previous board voted on that caused controversy.

Friesen said the mature minor motion was approved because parents and students had brought serious situations to them that they felt needed to be addressed. He noted the province’s new directive that teachers not direct message their students as an example of things the board was dealing with at the time. He also noted Premier Wab Kinew’s YouTube ban in schools as an example that fell under Policy AK.

“Well, there’s a lot of good stuff, and our staff really like YouTube, but sometimes you’ve got to look to see what are you bringing into the classroom. It’s not curriculum. It’s things that they figured could be good learning tools, but it hasn’t sat well with the families or the children,” he said.

In regards to Policy AK, he said it was very vague because it is an amalgamation of all of the division’s policies. He called the policy redundant and that it needed to be put in place because parents found it too difficult to follow the policies that were in place and were lost.

“It’s really nothing revolutionarily new, but it’s been made up to be. It’s got a lot of attention for no reason. That’s my opinion of it… And so this just streamlines it for them.”

When asked, Friesen said there was no right-wing coalition on the board and that was just Internet fodder that he was not going to comment on. He was also asked whether members on the board were going to be voting based on their religious or ideological beliefs as that was a hot topic during the election and he said “No.”

Friesen said the policies never name a group of people and that if there was a policy that was discrimatory against anyone he would “start screaming pretty loud.”

“We don’t do that. That is a discriminatory policy right off the start,” he said, noting there’s a misconception in the public that there are trustees who are against certain groups, but he said with different beliefs on the board it is a reflection of diversity.

The example of Barkman posting a cartoon, which he removed hours later from his social media, that showed a trustee shielding a group of children from the education minister, who is portrayed as a puppet to the Manitoba Teachers’ Society and the health minister with a sign in the background with the words “Trans Agenda” as an example of a trustee naming a group. Friesen called the cartoon interesting when he initially saw it, but that he wouldn’t comment on it as that was in the past and he was looking forward.

When pressed that the cartoon shows Barkman’s intent on how he would vote on certain issues and policies that might be brought to the board based on his beliefs, Friesen responded defensively.

“Especially if you keep leading (the public) there. So, let’s leave it there, and let’s move forward,” he responded.

Barkman was asked to comment on that Facebook post and he declined to answer directing the media to Friesen’s comment.

When asked if trustees should have children in the division in order to run as a trustee, Friesen said that is irrelevant and as a taxpayer one has the right to run for trustee legally. He noted that 70 percent of the school boards he has spoken to have retirees as trustees.

“That comment was out there on social media. I’ve seen it, and I’m going, ‘Well, you’re really missing the mark of what a school trustee does.’ Sixty percent of your property taxes are affected by what we’re doing. Does that make a difference whether I currently have a child in school, I’ve got five grandchildren, here they come again?… I don’t get that.”

In regards to the budget, Friesen said one of the priorities for the new board is continuing to support literacy and numeracy as students were not at grade level going into Grade 1.

“By Grade 3, the kids are grabbing at straws. And so that extra person in the Grade 1 class is something I think we’re still going to hopefully still be passionate about and continue on going forward.”

He also said the last board was looking at a new vocational high school in either Kleefeld, New Bothwell, Mitchell, or Blumenort for rural students, something the new board will continue to explore. He is open to exploring partnerships with other school divisions, such as Seine River School Division as it will open a new vocational high school in Ste Anne in 2028.

The division sent a survey to students and parents for their thoughts on a new vocational high school, but Friesen said he doesn’t know when the results will be compiled and if they will be published as that will be up to the board to decide.