A local nursery school is heavily affected by a recent notice from the province about funding being repealed for children's nurseries.

Portage Ukrainian Nursery School Director Lori Carpenter says late July saw an email with an attached document notifying proposed changes to the child care regulations in Manitoba. She notes it included efforts to streamline administration and cut back on red tape. Carpenter says she went through the entire document line by line and found that funding that they receive from the province was going to be repealed.

"I contacted my association, and there weren't very many of us that received the email," says Carpenter. "So, I started emailing nursery schools around the province to let them know. I thought it's a public consultation, and everybody should have a chance to weigh in on it. Nobody else was aware. It's kind of bad timing for us in the middle of the summer."

She notes most nursery schools are closed in the summer, so she felt she had to inform everyone. Carpenter says she feels there needs to be equity in the funding for child cares altogether in the province. Carpenter says family daycares are not funded ideally, as well. She explains it may open up a conversation for bringing funding to an appropriate level. Carpenter says she fears funding will simply be decreased.

"They said it's just a law that they're going to pass but they're not really going to lower our funding," adds Carpenter. "But when they do, they'll give us lots of notice. And that all makes me a little bit nervous. I'm hoping that people will speak up and ask questions, and find out exactly what that means. It's kind of disheartening for us. We've worked hard for this program."

Carpenter says they're working on a recommendation that no existing nursery school gets a reduction in funding as a result of the operating grant change. She says there is a very diverse group of families using nursery schools including those who have no problem affording more, but there those who would struggle. The most affected families may qualify for subsidization seeing as the province does offer that. She explains a certain income level qualifies you for a fee to be waived or partially waived. Right now, Carpenter says, the fee is $5 a half-day. Carpenter says it's extremely reasonable. However, even with that, she does have families that are on subsidy and those who struggle to put that money together.

Carpenter says it becomes a two-tiered system at that point. She notes the government said it should be income-based. She acknowledges it is income-based. Those who cannot afford the $5-per day do receive a subsidy. Carpenter says public schools do not make for a different experience depending on how much you can afford in that system, and thinks childcare should be the same.

She explains they're not trained to fundraise, but rather work with little children. Carpenter says this makes fundraising an amount like $27-thousand a daunting task for them.

Carpenter adds one of the criteria of the grant is to increase the number of sessions they have through the week. She notes they've always had a wait-list. So, they did have more sessions. Yet the grant being cut would require cutbacks in sessions and the number of children who attend. Carpenter notes they're the only nursery school left in Portage, making this incredibly saddening.

She says she hopes people will go to the province's consultation portal online and leave some thoughts. Carpenter adds COVID restrictions have been bad enough and now this, on top of that, makes things even more concerning.

She says a petition was started to save the enhanced nursery school funding, and it's important that everyone is aware of this issue.

"If this funding is cut, it's going to mean a severe decrease in our funding for this coming year, or when they do cut it. It'll be about a third of our annual revenue. The option would be that we'll have to double our parents' fees and we would have to fund raise about $27,000, and then count on a certain amount of donations as well."

Consultation site here: https://reg.gov.mb.ca/detail/2937833 (Submissions will be accepted until August 12, 2020).

The link to the Change.org petition that a nursery school in Winnipeg published:  http://chng.it/G9R57Xf56H

Carpenter says they'd like you to sign to encourage the government to reconsider the changes proposed to the Enhanced Nursery School Operating Grant…and share with anyone you know who has a nursery school connection.