Summary#
The Public Schools Amendment Act (Chronic Absenteeism Reporting) would amend Manitoba’s Public Schools Act. Its title indicates a goal of reporting chronic absenteeism; the bill sets out monitoring and reporting duties but does not require schools to provide attendance supports or take other action.
- School and independent-school principals must monitor absences reported under the existing Act to determine whether a child is chronically absent.
- Principals and school boards must send absence figures to the board or minister on set schedules. Independent-school principals report directly to the minister.
- The minister must publish yearly figures by school division or district and independent school, including counts and percentages by grade group and information about children who self-declare as Indigenous.
- “Chronically absent” means, for kindergarten to Grade 8, unexcused absences on at least 20% of teaching days in any of three specified periods. For Grades 9 to 12, it means at least 20 unexcused absences in a mathematics or English course.
- The supplied text says the Act would come into force on royal assent, but the assent date is blank. Whether it is now in force cannot be determined from the material provided.
What it means for you#
- School and independent-school principals: Must monitor absences and report required figures. School principals report to their board at the end of the school year; independent-school principals report to the minister by August 1.
- School boards: Must report to the minister by August 1 with the required figures for their school division or district.
- Students and families: The bill does not set attendance penalties, require individual attendance plans, or create a new support service.
- Indigenous students and communities: Reports must include figures about children who self-declare as Indigenous. The bill does not specify how Indigenous communities would be involved.
- General public: The minister must table the annual report in the Assembly and then make it available on a government website.
Money#
The bill creates monitoring and reporting duties, but no cost estimate is provided.
- Principals, school boards and the minister must do the work needed to meet those duties; the bill does not say how much staff time or funding this will require.
- The bill does not set a fee, fine, benefit or specific spending amount.
What is unclear#
- The Public Schools Act provision that the bill refers to for reported absences was not supplied, so the existing reporting process—and how this bill changes it—could not be verified.
- The bill does not explain how schools should classify an absence as excused or unexcused, or how they should count absences in a course.
- It does not set rules for checking or correcting figures, protecting small-group data, or handling questions about the report.
- The threshold for Grades 9 to 12 applies to absences in mathematics or English courses, not to a stated measure of a student’s overall attendance. The bill does not explain why it uses that measure.
- No publicly available information.
Case for#
- A consistent legal definition could make absence reporting more comparable across school divisions, districts and independent schools.
- Reporting both numbers and percentages, by grade group, could help readers see the scale of absenteeism as well as its share of enrolment.
- Reporting Indigenous self-declaration figures could make differences in reported absenteeism more visible.
- Requiring the minister to table and publish a yearly report could make the data accessible to the Assembly and public.
Case against#
- The bill requires data collection and publication but does not require any response to high absenteeism or provide attendance supports.
- The different measures for younger and older students may make the figures harder to compare: one uses the share of teaching days, while the other counts absences in two kinds of courses.
- The bill does not set out privacy safeguards for the reported Indigenous figures or explain how small counts would be handled.
- The new duties may require staff time and resources, but the bill gives no cost estimate or funding plan.