Full-day K on the way to West Shore
Goldstream News Gazette
By Edward Hill
November 25, 2009

Full-day kindergarten is coming to the Sooke School District next year, but how it will be funded and which schools will be affected remains a mystery.

In September 2010, some elementary schools in SD 62 will start full-day kindergarten. The Ministry of Education has mandated all elementaries will have the program by 2011, said superintendent Jim Cambridge.

“Whether it’s all schools (next year) or a couple we’re not sure. It’s not our decision,” Cambridge said. “We’ve heard through the grapevine that we’ll know before Christmas.”

The sooner the district knows the better, Cambridge said — parents register their tots for kindergarten in February and there are plenty of logistics to work out. “Parents are certainly concerned on issues around universal access or if it’s just certain schools,” Cambridge said. “We’ll want to know as soon as possible.”

This year the district has 600 kindergarten kids attending, all part time. If the government opts for all schools going full time in September, the district will need to find double the space. They also don’t want to push out existing pre-school or after-school programs, Cambridge said….

Ruth King elementary kindergarten teacher Shannon Hjermstad said she’s looking forward to full-day K, as long as the Ministry of Education does its homework.

Given a choice, Phillips said the board would prefer to have all schools move to all-day K rather than half now, half later. “We wouldn’t want to pick which schools,” he said.

Phillips said it remains unclear if and how the government would supplement district budgets for full-day K. Kindergarten students would qualify for full-time funding, but K classes tend to need more resources — games, toys, tables, paints and small libraries.

“Kindergarten materials are relatively expensive because of their specialized nature,” Phillips said. “We could end up with extra capital costs.”…

“Our position is that (all-day kindergarten) a good thing as long as it’s well resourced,” Cambridge said…