Families shocked at Erica’s kinder closure

Michael Leaney, a Baw Baw Shire councillor, believes there are sufficient numbers for 2021 with 11 children enrolled and several others in the community showing interest.

“I think they’ve jumped the gun here by sending out a closure notice before the enrolments had even closed,” he said. “Even council wasn’t given the courtesy of finding out what was going on. We found out at exactly the same time as others.”

Erica Kindergarten went into recession this year after only three enrolments were received from two families.

Mr Leaney said the kindergarten facilities and teachers were ready to go in 2021, but YMCA seemingly was not as enthusiastic.

“I just don’t think they (YMCA) want to do it.”

“Erica is a great kinder,” he said. “They’ve got some really good programs. People were enrolling from Moe and Newborough.”

However, families have been advised to look to Willow Grove Kindergarten – a 40minute drive away.

“Part of providing high quality early years education program includes a suitable number of children attending the program,” said the YMCA letter to enrolled families. “With this in mind, we are advising that the program at Erica Kindergarten will not be resuming in 2021 due to the low enrolments.”

Mr Leaney believes Erica Kindergarten had received about five enrolments for the four-year-old group and about six enrolments for the three-year-old, which was both socially and financially viable for a small-town kinder.

If the kinder does close, Mr Leaney believes the next challenge would be keeping the Rawson Primary School which currently has about 30 students enrolled.

He said young families may not look to move to the area due to no kinder facilities and the school may find itself in the same position in five years.

“It’s just not a good position to be in.”

However, Mr Leaney declared “we’re going into bat as hard as we can to get this fixed”.

YMCA Ballarat executive manager children’s services Vicki Dobson said enrolments for 2021 had been open all year and at the time of making its decision for next year, only three families had expressed interest.

She said a few more families came forward after the closure announcement, pushing it to six children for next year.

“So for two years, we’ve had less than 6 children enrol. And before that attendances were in single figures as well,” she said.

Ms Dobson said their first priority was the ability to operate an engaging, positive educational program that would support children with the necessary social learning they need before attending school.

“While we have a fantastic teacher and educator in place for the service, and a very serviceable venue, the fact is we cannot generate the social setting required with such small numbers,” she said.

Ms Dobson said they had to take into account future growth projections for the town.

“Closing a kindergarten program is a very serious step, and one that is not taken lightly. We understand that these programs can be at the centre of a small community.

“At the end of the day, the quality of the program we provide cannot be delivered to the highest level without a large enough group of children,” she said.