No all-day Kindergarten for Sea to Sky: Second reading of funding system showed no money for program
Apr 7, 2010
Pique
By Andrew Mitchell

A bid to allow the Sea to Sky School District to offer full-day kindergarten partway through the 2010-2011 school year was turned down by the province, but given the circumstances and funding issues that were revealed recently the board believes that it was probably for the best.

"This is not a decision that came easily to the board," said Chair Rick Price in a press release on Tuesday. "The Ministry of Education would only recognize 194 of the (300) expected kindergarten students as being full time for funding purposes in September 2010, so the board was put in the position of having to choose which students in which schools in which communities would be offered full day kindergarten, and which ones would not. All possible options were explored but in the end, through the lens of fairness, and within the reality of an already difficult budget situation none were feasible."

Last September the Ministry of Education announced only partial funding for full-day kindergarten throughout the province…

Rather than turn down the funding at the Jan. 22 deadline, however, the Sea to Sky School District pursued an idea from a parent to offer half-day kindergarten for the first half of the upcoming school year, then switch to full time for all of the students in the district in January. It would have cost the same and all 300 kindergarten students would have benefited.

However, the province refused and have yet to give the school district an explanation. Pique contacted the Ministry of Education in February and was told that there were issues ranging from classroom space to teacher availability across the province, and the goal was to offer the program through schools that already had additional programming for that age group, like StrongStart B.C.

"Not a very compelling reason," said Price in an interview on Wednesday….

Another reading of the Ministry of Education's funding system revealed that there was no additional money available for any full-day kindergarten in 2010 and that the entire cost of offering the program - roughly $450,000 for Sea to Sky - would have to come out of the district's budget of just over $35 million. Rather than make cuts elsewhere, the district decided to pass on the opportunity until September 2011….the Ministry (of Education) intends, for the first time this year, to restrict our ability to balance the budget through the use of prior year surpluses. The board could not, in good conscience, add to these serious challenges by accepting the additional cost of full-day kindergarten for the 2010-2011 school year."….