One year after AI-generated nudes of underage students from Winnipeg sparked a Canada-wide conversation about sexual violence in the age of artificial intelligence, the school division at the centre of the scandal has come up with a new protocol. The Louis Riel School Division released guidelines for teachers and other staff members working in classrooms […]

Manitoba Education made sweeping changes to speed up the teacher-certification process by slackening training requirements — even though confidential documents reveal there was reasonable support for moderate tweaks among key stakeholders. There is a stark contrast between a spring blueprint a senior bureaucrat, citing early feedback from employers, union leaders and faculties of education, described […]

A POLICE officer, a First Nations lawyer and a community-health program manager are among a dozen people who’ve been chosen to serve as panellists in disciplinary cases involving teachers under a new Manitoba Education Department professional registry and complaint process. Bobbi Taillefer, the province’s first independent education commissioner, has the discretion to dismiss or investigate […]

The Manitoba government has scrapped plans to create a centralized database for student registration, report cards and other information at a cost in excess of $50 million. The Free Press has learned the initiative is not moving forward — unrelated to a series of recent cybersecurity incidents, although the Opposition Tories argue the shelved proposal, […]

The majority of Manitoba school divisions have been impacted by a data breach involving a popular software program used to track student and employee contact information.  More than 20 superintendents have informed families in recent days that PowerSchool — the owner and operator of their shared student-information system — was hacked in late December.  Customers […]

“While we are dealing with the disruption to international education domestically it may seem counterintuitive to work with our existing and new international partners,” president and chief executive officer Fred Meier wrote in a mass email to employees on Nov. 1. “However, now is perhaps the most important time to foster those relationships and showcase […]

Teachers, students and support staff in the Pembina Trails School Division remain without Wi-Fi more than a week after a cyberattack resulted in a network-wide outage. Among many disruptions in recent days, phone lines temporarily went down, laptops were declared “corrupted” and educators have been asked to put files onto USB sticks in order to […]

Manitoba Education has abandoned plans to create an entirely new online high school to increase access to remote learning and expand e-course offerings coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. The department’s planned takeover of InformNet — a Grade 9-12 remote learning program operated by Winnipeg’s St. James-Assinbioia School Division — appears to be collateral damage […]

Manitoba Teachers’ Society executives have not ruled out an investigation to hold whistleblowers accountable for exposing employee concerns about the head office’s “toxic” environment, related departures and capacity to support members. “I honestly can’t say at this point in time which direction things will take; we’ll have to see how things play out,” said president […]

One group of local union presidents wants the Manitoba Teachers’ Society to launch an inquiry into recent leaks that reveal MTS headquarters is troubled by a large number of administrative employee leaves and allegations it is a “toxic work environment.” Anonymous posts criticizing leaders from both the union’s operational and political wings began appearing on […]

An ex-law dean accused of embezzling more than a half-million dollars from the University of Manitoba asked an employee to set up a Swiss bank account as a payee and, on another occasion, told her to “stop asking questions” about his expense claims. The professional disciplinary hearing of Jonathan Black-Branch heard from two witnesses — […]

The Manitoba government’s main reason to make a U-turn and build classrooms via public-private partnerships — a controversial model the Tories rejected in 2018 — is to fulfil a new promise to open 22 public schools by 2027. Internal documents obtained by the Free Press show government staffers have been in talks about using a […]