Local mother takes up role as homeschool helpdesk

A Minnedosa mother has become a helpdesk for Westman parents who are looking to homeschool their children.

Larissa MacDonald supports local parents for up to 16 hours per month in her spare time, forwarding information packages, answering online questions, and providing in-person consultations about her passion of homeschooling. In a recent interview with the Sun, MacDonald said she wants to make homeschooling more accessible.

“I would say it’s my ministry. It’s my passion. It’s what I love to do,” MacDonald said. “I love my children and spending time with them, and I want to enable others to do so as well.”

MacDonald is a mother of eight children, a board member of the Manitoba Association of Christian Home Schools, and an administrator for the local Facebook group, Westman Homeschool Connection. She said she often helps local parents find their way through a common set of questions.

“In the early years, it’s like, ‘Where do we start?’” MacDonald said. “Whether that’s finding a curriculum or knowing how and when to file the notification with the province, I think they often feel panicked.”

She sent more than 20 information packages in February and March, and sat down for five in-person meetings since the most recent school year started in September, she said. Parents often feel overwhelmed by the concept of homeschooling, and she wants to reduce that barrier to entry.

“When you pull from the public system, you take all the responsibility for educating your children on yourself, and the options are numerous,” MacDonald said. “Meeting someone who has been there, and-done that can give people the confidence that they can do it too.”

A recent consultation with the parents of a six-year-old Minnedosa girl has turned out to be one of her biggest success stories since beginning to promote the practice roughly 10 years ago, she said.

Emily Gould, a Minnedosa mother, told the Sun in a recent interview that she and her husband met with MacDonald over Christmas break to discuss homeschooling for the six-year-old. Gould had been wrestling with her gut feeling that she needed to homeschool the daughter after she failed to learn colours, numbers and letters for two years of kindergarten.

“I had made a post, just asking about it, trying to just talk to someone who can actually tell me the logistics of it,” Gould told the Sun. “And she had reached out, and said that she’d be willing to sit down with us. So she ended up coming over to my house.”

MacDonald spent roughly two hours in their home, listening to their situation and sharing her experience and knowledge. The meeting was the pivotal moment that allowed her and her husband to pull the trigger on homeschooling, Gould said.

“When we sat down with her and really talked about it, it was just very reassuring,” Gould said. “It helped, putting our minds at ease, saying we could do this.”

Gould had fought the previous year to hold her daughter back in school because of the lack of progress in learning the curriculum. After succeeding in having her daughter held back, her daughter finished another semester of kindergarten and still failed to learn the subjects, Gould said.

“After we talked to her, it was pretty much like, ‘Okay, let’s do it. We don’t have to over complicate it,’” Gould said. “She never went back to school after that.”

The switch to homeschooling has resulted in a 180-degree turn on that struggle, she said.

“From then until now, she’s finished an entire kindergarten curriculum. She knows all of her colours, numbers, letters, she’s starting to read. She’s doing math, like, she’s doing all of the things at kindergarten level or above kindergarten level,” Gould said. “It’s just incredible watching her really thrive.”

Gould posted a kindergarten graduation online in late March, celebrating the move for the first time.

“Yesterday was really special, and honestly, a little emotional,” she wrote. “I am so unbelievably proud of you … and I’ll always be in your corner.”

Gould said she is now leaning more towards homeschooling all her children in the future, but said she doesn’t plan to pull her older son out because public school is working for him. Gould and her husband have a total of four children, two not yet of school age.

The success with the mother of the six-year-old has been rewarding and amazing to witness, MacDonald told the Sun.

“To see what Emily talks about in her posts on Facebook, I’m just thrilled,” MacDonald said. “She’s probably one of my greatest success stories.”

MacDonald does not have a count on how many people she has messaged, met with or sent information to over the years — but said a surge started during the COVID pandemic and continues today.

The Province of Manitoba’s 2025 enrolment report showed an increase of 6.4 per cent, or 332 more homeschool students year-over-year in Manitoba. The increase brought the total number of students to 5,531, up from 1,000 at the turn of the century.

MacDonald has been homeschooling since 2006, and previously worked as an educational assistant in the public school system. Her youngest child is eight years old, the oldest is 24 years old, and two of her graduates have gone on to various post-secondary institutions like Brandon University, Assiniboine College and the University of Manitoba, with the other two graduates working in trades. The remaining four school-aged children are completing the K to 12 curriculum at home.

MacDonald said she plans to continue assisting the Westman homeschooling community going forward. She wants to help others gain the gift of time with their children like she has learned to appreciate, she said.

“I don’t plan on quitting helping to mentor homeschoolers. I’ll be there for people who need it,” she said. “Simply the fact that they do choose to homeschool is rewarding to me.”

» cmcdowell@brandonsun.com