New elementary school to be built in Waverley West

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This article was published 12/02/2025 (232 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba government is planning to open a new dual-track elementary school in Waverley West in 2027 to address growing enrolment pressures across the south end of the city.

Prairie Pointe will soon be home to a kindergarten-to-Grade 8 site with both English and French immersion streams, Education Minister Tracy Schmidt announced at a news conference Wednesday.

“Currently, we have students — hundreds of students — who we are farming out to other schools in Pembina Trails, some of them down the Pembina (Highway) strip and over at Whyte Ridge,” Pembina Trails School Division Supt. Shelley Amos told reporters inside the library of École South Pointe School.

Amos said many students enrolled at South Pointe will be “moving on” to attend classes closer to their homes when the construction project is complete.

The school is anticipated to have capacity for about 600 students, in addition to 74 infant and preschool child-care spots.

The province has selected a plot of land on Castlebrook Drive between Landover and Skyline drives.

Schmidt said many young families are moving to Waverley West and existing public school classrooms are experiencing pressures as a result.

An additional school in the area will allow students to receive more one-on-one time with their teachers, she said, adding the Kinew government is earmarking $3 million to reduce class sizes across Manitoba for the second consecutive year.

Pembina Trails’ student population has grown more than 12 per cent over the last five years. The division has opened two new schools, both located in fast-growing developments in Waverley West, during that period.

The additions have eased some pressures, but South Pointe, originally built for 850 students, has been operating with four portable classrooms to accommodate ongoing growth.

Construction is anticipated to begin next year, both on the Prairie Pointe project and a similar one in River East Transcona School Division.

Premier Wab Kinew and the education minister announced a blueprint to build an elementary school in Transcona’s Devonshire Park during the annual school funding announcement earlier this week. The province has selected a five-acre site adjacent to Sir Robert Borden Park near the intersection of Devonshire and Jerry Klein drives for the Transcona school.

“It looks like education outside the Perimeter Highway has been forgotten about by this NDP government,” Progressive Conservative education critic Grant Jackson said.

Manitoba’s latest available enrolment data shows the divisions that welcomed the largest number of new students in 2023-24 were Winnipeg, Louis Riel, Pembina Trails and River East Transcona.

The divisions that recorded the largest percentage hikes were Neepawa’s Beautiful Plains, Morden-based Western, Lakeshore in Eriksdale and LRSD in Winnipeg, with respective increases of eight per cent, six per cent, 5.9 per cent and 5.3 per cent.

Neepawa and Brandon-area schools are “running out of space,” Jackson said.

He also expressed concern the province is using that plot instead of another one in the area that the RETSD bought during the former PC government’s tenure.

RETSD spokesman Adrian Alleyne said the division owns 328 Peguis St., formerly home to Sumka Brothers Greenhouses, and the land on Devonshire Drive.

“Both were purchased previously as sites for new schools, with the Devonshire property being obtained first. The purpose for both properties is to build new schools,” Alleyne said in an email.

Schmidt echoed those comments this week, dismissing the official Opposition’s suggestion the NDP simply did not want to announce a new school on a site that was previously announced by the PCs.

“Ultimately, it’s because the (Devonshire Park) site is ready to go,” the education minister told the Free Press.

The 2025-26 education funding announcement includes $6 million in new dollars for capital financing projects, including principal and interest costs related to building schools.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca