More on Full Day Kindergarten: Who and Where?
Vancouver Observer
Kristina Campbell
November 6, 2009

Children who reach their fifth birthday before December 31st, 2010 are now eligible to register for kindergarten in the Vancouver School District. Schools began taking applications on November 2nd for enrolment in the 2010-2011 school year.

As school secretaries serve line-ups of parents proffering their children’s birth certificates and passports, some are not yet able to inform the parents whether, come September, their child will be attending school for a half day or a full day.

The BC Ministry of Education has promised a full day program to half of the province’s children in fall 2010, but it has yet to announce which students in which districts will be given access.

Participants in an October 2nd forum on full day kindergarten discussed the fairest way to determine which BC 5-year-olds will be offered the full day program in its first year. According to the summary report, “Participants suggested that school districts and independent schools determine locations for year one using the Early Development Instrument (EDI) and/or the Community Link Index which are indicators of neighbourhood level child development.” ….

Even with attempts to fast-track the most vulnerable preschoolers in each district, the phasing-in of the program could be a political hot potato. Parents who live in neighbourhoods where the majority of families have the resources to give their children a stronger start will pay out-of-pocket for an extra year of half-day childcare before universal access 5-hour-a-day kindergarten is achieved throughout the province….

In an article published in the BC Teachers’ Federation Newsmagazine, a former BC principal says that the phase-in year “...will lead to an uneven and geographically varied pattern of admissions across BC and leave many parents scratching their heads as to why they can’t gain admission for their preschoolers in a particular school district.”….

Being “ready” likely includes having the appropriate spaces to host full day kindergarten within existing school facilities. While some schools across the province have empty classrooms because of declining enrolment and changing demographics in their catchment areas, other schools are bursting at the seams. The fullest schools will probably not be among the first to implement full day kindergarten.

Space utilization poses additional challenges for some schools. Currently, some empty classrooms are rented out to daycare facilities and Montessori programs that care for children before or after school. Kindergarten will almost certainly take priority over daycare facilities when competing for classrooms, making it necessary for some daycare facilities to find space elsewhere. At the government’s full day kindergarten forum, however, “Many noted the importance of keeping and/or establishing child care in schools, which are increasingly serving as community hubs or neighbourhoods of learning.” Schools will have to negotiate the best use of space with organizations that currently rent from them….