Education initiatives include all-day kindergarten
Vancouver Island News Group - Nanaimo News Bulletin
February 16, 2008

The province is considering putting five-year-olds in kindergarten for a full day rather than the current half day.

But Jamie Brennan, Nanaimo school board chairman, said he's not sure that will impact trustees' decisions on closing six schools to address excess capacity.

"To roll this thing out, you're not going to be able to do it in the next year or two," he said.

In the meantime, the district faces a predicted funding shortfall ….

In Tuesday's throne speech, the province announced it's creating an Early Childhood Learning Agency to assess the feasibility and cost of providing full school day kindergarten for five-year-olds and kindergarten for four and three- year olds by 2010 and 2012.

Brennan said instead of offering kindergarten to preschool-aged children, the government should look into a better day-care system.

"What they need to do is build up a good and accessible child care system," he said.

Mike Munro, superintendent of schools, said if full-day kindergarten were mandated, it might impact school capacity utilization numbers.

"We'd have to do a real close analysis," he said. "Some kindergarten classes aren't used throughout the whole day, some are. We'd have to investigate each site."

David Green, secretary-treasurer, said the most significant cost of full-day kindergarten would be staffing.

"Depending on the demand, there may be space issues in certain schools," he said. "Not all schools have full kindergarten enrolments."…