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RM of Wallace-Woodworth councillor Diana MacDonald attended an education stakeholder meeting on Jan. 29 in Hamiota. She brought a report to the council about childcare and K-Gr.12 education.

Park West School Division had concerns about their funding. Last year’s provincial funding increase for the division was only 0.9 per cent. Park West has now received a one per cent increase while Fort La Bosse received approximately 1.5 per cent and Southwest Horizon gained 2.7 per cent.

At Hamiota elementary school, a Terry Fox teaching event and walk raised $2,100. The Christmas concert featured two performances with strong attendance and allowed the school to donate $575 to Hamiota Food Bank.

Through a nutrition grant, the school provides three free lunches per week and snacks on Wednesdays.

McDonald reported that Villages United daycare (Hamiota) facility is currently at full capacity, with 17 infants already on the waiting list for 2026. Kenton daycare operates out of the former Kenton school that’s currently owned by Farmers Edge. This daycare is facing a challenge, as its rent is set to triple. The daycare may require a new building and asked whether the RM could provide assistance.

The executive director of Villages United Early Learning Centre Inc. is Jen Sims (ECE III) and the towns of Hamiota, Kenton, Oak River and Strathclair each have childcare facilities.

Through an email interview, Sims provided additional information about childcare available in the area and an update on Kenton’s rent increase, and says at this time the increase will be absorbed by the organization. “We have not had a rent increase since we started paying rent after Farmer's Edge took over the building and as with all things, there is a price increase that will be taken on by Villages United.”

Villages United

Sims explains that the Hamiota location of Villages United Early Learning Centre opened in 2004 with an expansion to a second building.

Hamiota offers eight infant, 31 preschool, 20 school age and 20 nursery school spaces. Now, however, Hamiota is in need of additional space for all ages and Sims says, “Hamiota is beginning to look into ways to increase school age spaces as well.”

Villages United opened the Kenton facility in 2008 with four infant and 12 preschool spaces. The Oak River site opened in 2013 and Strathclair in 2016. Each of those have four infant and eight preschool spaces.

All four facilities are operated out of the main site in Hamiota where the executive director works. Day to day operations are handled by assistant directors onsite in each facility.

Sims says, “In the last year our waitlists have exploded in all facilities and we are just now starting to consider increasing primarily preschool spaces to try and create room for all of our children to stay within the same facility for their entire infant, and into preschool, career.”

She says, “$10-a-day child care has made full-time care an option for many families who were unable to financially afford it in the past. Many are choosing to pay for a full-time space to ensure they have a space when it is available for their shifts as we are not able to accommodate part-time families like in past years.

“Being short on spaces is a great problem from a business perspective, but having to ask children to leave when they turn two or finish kindergarten is not a problem we wish to pass on to our families.”

ABOUT

Villages United Early Learning Centre is operated by a board of directors, and governed by the Province of Manitoba - Early Learning and Child Care, public health and local fire inspectors.

The Rural Municipality of Wallace-Woodworth begins at the Saskatchewan border and includes Kenton and area, with their students being bussed to Park West School Division’s Hamiota Schools.

Education stakeholders meeting

By Anne Davison