Junior kindergarten halt received positively
Local education providers say they're 'happy' program was shelved
Randi Beers
Northern News Services
Published Friday, November 7, 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Yellowknife school board chairs and a representative for the Centre for Northern Families say they feel encouraged by a recent territorial government decision to halt junior kindergarten.
Olivia Cadieux, 3, shares a laugh with Education Minister Jackson Lafferty early last month during an Oct. 3 tour of the junior kindergarten program at the Kaw Tay Whee School in Dettah. - Cody Punter/NNSL photo |
Premier Bob McLeod announced Oct. 30 his government will complete a thorough eight-month review of the program before it decides how to introduce it in Yellowknife and other regional centres.
The controversial funding model the government is using to implement the program will not change - it still plans to claw back $1.4 million from Yellowknife District Education No. 1 and the Yellowknife Catholic Schools this fiscal year and the next to implement the program in the territory's smaller communities. The program, which was announced in February, is the brainchild of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment (ECE).
Mira Hall, family programs director at the Centre for Northern Families, said it's a good thing ECE has committed to consult with local education providers and daycares.
"I think they halted (the program) as a response to feedback and to their credit, they said, 'OK, we need to slow this down," said Hall.
Moving forward, she believes the government needs to consider giving more funding to daycare operators because their budgets will be affected by the loss of four-year-olds to the free junior kindergarten program.
She predicts open spaces left by four-year-olds will be filled by younger children. This will in turn affect daycare operators' bottom lines, because they are required by the government to maintain a higher ratio of staff to take care of infants and toddlers. For example, a single early childhood educator can take care of as many as eight preschoolers, while one educator can only watch over four infants at once. Hall says the government runs the risk of increasing stress on parents of infants as daycare spaces rise.
"Free junior kindergarten would definitely take some pressure off parents (of preschoolers) being able to meet bills, but they won't achieve their goals if parents of infants are prevented from working because they can't afford a space in daycare," she said.
"They really need to look at meeting children's emotional and social needs from the time they are conceived to the time they hit junior kindergarten."
To avoid this, Hall said the government will have to increase the amount of money it allocates to daycares as junior kindergarten rolls out in Yellowknife.
"(Daycare providers) have been asking ECE to look at base funding; it hasn't been looked at for years and years. This feedback was definitely given at (previous) public consultations," she said. Base funding is money the territorial government contributes to daycares in the territory.
The amount an individual daycare receives is determined by the amount of spaces the daycare provides and by which community the daycare is operating in.
Simon Taylor, chair of the Catholic School Board, told Yellowknifer he also thinks the review is a good thing. He sees it as an opportunity for Yellowknife parents give input on how the program should roll out.
"Once the government puts a review in place it's a process where parents can get involved and allow their points of view to be considered too," he said.
Taylor said he has always been supportive of junior kindergarten, but is critical of its funding model, which will draw on surpluses held by regional school boards to pay for the program outside Yellowknife. He said the government's claim his school board has a $1.4 million surplus is inaccurate.
"The accumulated surplus is not a pot of money we can draw on," he said.
"(That money) is already future committed funds so our actual surplus - as they call it - is only a tenth of what they are saying ... when you cut funds you are also going to cut services, it's as simple as that."
John Stephenson, chair of Yellowknife Education District No. 1, says his school board uses its surplus the same way.
"It's a reserve to deal with emerging issues like unexpected enrolment, children who arrive with special needs, education assistance, we've helped with the construction of playgrounds, there are a number of things we use our reserve for," he explained.
"That's why it's our intention to maintain a five per cent surplus in our (budget)."
Stephenson said there will be many aspects to take into consideration before junior kindergarten rolls out in Yellowknife, and the fact the government will examine what works and what doesn't as it's introduced to communities is a "healthy, positive step."
He said the government hasn't approached his school board yet about future consultations and the only information he knows is what was contained in the premier's announcement.
