Nursery Program Fact Sheet

Winnipeg School Division (WSD) commemorated 50 years in 2015 since it first launched its Nursery program. The division planted a tree at David Livingstone School where the first Nursery class began in 1965. The WSD Board of Trustees made a monumental decision at that time to establish a nursery program. The intent was to start nursery in the lowest socio-economic areas.

• On Sept. 1, 1965, the first nursery program was established at David Livingstone School to enrich the education of children whose opportunities for learning needed strengthening.
• The nursery program at David Livingstone was deemed a success and the following year nursery classes were implemented at three more inner-city schools. The program continued to expand to include all high- needs schools.
• In 1984, the Board approved a further expansion of the nursery program by six more schools, as the first phase of a three-year program to include all elementary schools in WSD. with the exception of
• The nursery classes in milieu settings started in the 1999-2000 school year. The four French immersion milieu schools are: École Lansdowne, École LaVérendrye and École Sacré-Coeur, and at École Sir William Osler in 2017.
• Due to financial constraints, nursery, which had run half-days, five days a week for the full school year, was cut back to an eight-month program starting in the 1996-97 school year and it was not reinstated to 10 months until the 2005-06 school year.
• Today WSD runs nursery classes at 59 schools.
• The nursery program enrolment was 1,808 as of Sept. 30, 2016.
• Children must turn four by Dec. 31 and live within the boundaries of Winnipeg School Division in order to be registered for nursery.
• The cost to operate the nursery program annually is approximately $5.3 million. The entire cost is funded by Winnipeg School Division via the education special levy on property taxes.
• The value of nursery programs has been well documented in research, most notably by the Perry Preschool Project from the High Scope Educational Research Foundation in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The long-range study was begun in 1962 with 123 children, who were randomly divided into two groups. One group of 58 three-and four-year-olds received a high-quality preschool program, while the other group received no preschool program. The individuals were revisited at the age of 27 and again at the age of 40.
• Perry Preschool Project data indicate the early years of development to age six set the base for competence and coping skills that will affect learning, behaviour and health throughout life and that preschool education can produce substantial gains in children's learning and development. Data indicate that the adults, who attended the preschool as children, earn more money and that more of them own their own homes. These adults also have had fewer conflicts with the law than the control group. The American study estimates a savings of $17 to society for every tax dollar invested in the program.
• Data from the studies of the Abecedarian Early Childhood Intervention program and the Title I Chicago Child-Parent Centers support the findings of the Perry Preschool Project. Data from all three of these long-term studies provide evidence that high-quality preschool programs save far more tax dollars than are spent on high-quality preschool. Some of these savings include: children who had received preschool education were less likely to fail a grade or be placed in special education (saving education dollars); as adults, the study participants were likely to get better paying jobs (contributing more tax dollars) and were less likely to break the law or participate in anti-social behaviour (saving criminal justice dollars).