Child-care crunch continues; Many parents may be unaware of changes to government plans for all-day kindergarten
The Daily Courier (Vernon)
February 23, 2009
By: J.P. Squire

The province's decision not to start all-day kindergarten next September may leave a lot of parents in the lurch, especially those who gave up their child-care space….

"We get calls all the time. They're all excited because their expectation of full-day kindergarten was full-day, day-care kindergarten, which meant it would be free," said Lynn Burgat, executive director of the Kelowna Child Care Society.

It wasn't made clear that all-day kindergarten (8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.) wasn't the same hours as a typical group day-care program that may run 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., she said.

Working parents would have had to make other child-care arrangements from 2:30 p.m. on, but part of that day would have been free for them, she said.

"At this point in time, those parents are back to where they were at the beginning: finding child-care spaces."

As long as parents didn't give up their child-care space in the expectation they were going to get free kindergarten/day care, then they should be fine, said Burgat.

"However, if a parent has given up her space in anticipation of free kindergarten/day care, then there might be some repercussions; they may be without a spot and will have to start looking for one."

Typically, day-care programs accept children who are going to be there for the whole day.

In the case of all-day kindergarten, parents may have had to pay the full-day rate to reserve a spot for after-school care.

It's possible new child-care programs tailored to support full-day kindergarten could have been developed, but that takes time, said Burgat.

There was lots of media coverage on the possible delay of all-day kindergarten, but the society is still getting calls from parents who think it will start in September and have given up their day-care space….