A lot of people seem upset that the McGuinty government has reversed itself on the decision to have school boards be solely responsible for before-and-after school care for full-day kindergarten students. But what’s bothersome is that it took the government this long to realize that aspect of the plan was flawed.
Optional full-day kindergarten for Ontario’s youngest students began this fall for 35,000 kids. Originally, the plan put forward by the government’s early learning adviser, Charles Pascal, recommended a system that would have obligated school boards to provide before-and-after-care programming. Although it wasn’t entirely clear when the plan was first announced, it became clear shortly that was going to be a problem, and unnecessarily so. In Hamilton, Burlington and across the province, day-care providers are already running programs in partnership with school boards. Following the original plan to the letter would have meant dismantling those partnerships, a prospect that threatened many credible and experienced child-care providers, such as the Hamilton-Burlington-Brantford YMCA and Today’s Family Early Learning and Child Care, a nonprofit, licensed care provider in the area.
Both these organizations have established relationships with their local school boards, and experience providing before- and after-school care to young children. If there was evidence this collaboration was not working in the best interest of kids and families, we’d agree a new system is needed. But local school boards are clearly satisfied with their child-care partnerships, so much so that, back in June, the boards decided they would not operate their own programming. In this day and age, we need more collaborative partnerships, not fewer. The government did the right thing.
via www.thespec.com
