The Louis Riel School Division plans to transform more classrooms into child-care spaces before and after its bells ring to better support working parents.
“We have a child-care crisis in the province… The school system has to be part of the solution,” said Christian Michalik, superintendent of the division that encompasses St. Boniface, River Park South and surrounding communities.
The division is developing a strategy to reduce waitlists for on-site and off-site supervision programs in the early mornings and late afternoons. The board office is in the process of hiring a manager to expand school-run day cares and staff new ones with educational assistants.
Michalik said he wants to create a more co-ordinated and systemic approach to child-care coverage.
His vision is a divisionwide initiative that is cost-neutral, feeds students and engages them in recreational activities when their parents are tied up, he said.
The expansion, which is anticipated to begin this fall, cannot come soon enough for Stephen Sobczak. His Grade 1 son is in a line behind more than a dozen peers vying for an opening in a volunteer-run program that extends the day at Niakwa Place School.
“Grandparents are helping out for now. Without that support network, I honestly don’t know what we’d do,” Sobczak said, adding he cannot leave work early enough to accommodate the 3 p.m. dismissal.
Division administration has begun surveying households with children in kindergarten to Grade 6 to determine what kind of coverage is needed and where.
More than half of 2,065 respondents to date — one of whom was Sobczak — have said they need help at some point between 6:45 a.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays.
Roughly one-third of families reported they will require assistance both before and after school in the fall. About seven per cent of them said they are unsure about what their schedules will look like in 2025-26.
Michalik said he’s determined to hear from every elementary household to find out whether they need a hand and if so, how much they are willing to pay for an extended school day.
The subsidized rate for before- and after-school coverage in Manitoba is $8.60 per day.
École Van Belleghem, which does not receive government support, charges $12 to cover its expenses, such as staffing, puzzles and snacks for its 28 participants.
“It’s not about homework. It’s just a safe place to have fun until the parents are picking them up,” principal Michelle Bacon said.
School administration took on the initiative two years ago when a child-care director who ran a private company out of the building — a far more common model in the division — retired.
Bacon said the project has been successful, owing to a keen university student who took on the co-ordinator role, but they cannot meet demand. About 40 students are on the waitlist.
École Sage Creek School has a similar challenge. Its office has a list of 370 children interested in a 72-seat program that sandwiches the instructional day.
“I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say the demand is overwhelming,” said Jason Dubeau, who indicated he’s spent much of his first year as principal fielding inquiries about child care in the community.
Dubeau said he welcomes the possibility of handing off some of the organizing responsibilities involved to Louis Riel division headquarters.
Michalik expressed interest in leveraging the division’s centralized hiring, vetting and training processes to support schools. While noting he does not want to take any business away from private providers and plans to consult with them, the superintendent said many are unable to expand their operations due to workforce constraints.
The Manitoba Child Care Association’s leader cautioned the division against making decisions without consulting facility directors first, as she said was the case when Louis Riel voted to roll out universal kindergarten.
Executive director Jodie Kehl said licensed school-aged programs, such as the one she ran before joining the association, are expected to meet regulatory requirements. Among them, 50 per cent of staff working in a school-aged program in Manitoba must have an early childhood educator level two or three classification.
“I can appreciate some innovation in terms of thinking outside the box, in terms of staffing, perhaps you’d think EAs — but EAs might not necessarily be qualified,” Kehl said.
There are 14,000 of these licensed spaces in the province at present, the association said.
