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Full-day kindergarten, learning hubs, and extended parental leave are all here, and I think the vision is fabulous.
Nevertheless I have some reservations.
First, I think combining Early Years centres with schools and kindergartens has the potential to be excellent for kids. I'll be waiting to see how my union responds to this, because so far, they've been against the idea of full-day kindergarten unless it's staffed by their own members. I can see why - ECE workers do not have the training in literacy and assessment that a certified teacher has in Ontario. The only reason the government would like to put ECE workers into that job is that they're an awful lot cheaper. In Ontario, ECE is a two-year community college course, versus teaching's average of five years university. As a result, ECE workers top out at about the salary where teachers start.
The second big problem is physical. Kindergarten and early years centres need classrooms with bathrooms and sinks and water fountains right in the room, and for the early years centres, probably an area that meets Department of Health regulations for preparing snacks. Even schools that have empty rooms don't have rooms that are set up like that. Expanding kindergarten from half-day to full-day requires us to double our space for kindergarten classes, and portables won't cut it. Even empty rooms in most schools will need significant modifications to meet criteria. The result is obvious to me: the schools that are going to get this first are the new schools, the ones that have been built with the knowledge that this was coming down the line and have the extra space with its amenities already accounted for. That means schools like ours - medium needs, small, old, and around the corner from a Catholic school that has all the amenities and has an Early Years centre already - are going to be at the bottom of the list for improvements. I'd be surprised if our school sees this before 2015, with the way the government is hemming and hawing about money.
The last thing I would like to see would be a change to parental leave to allow extended leaves to be taken half-time, rather than full-time as they are now (and as this report suggests.) I know a fair number of people who would be better off working half-time for a few years when their kids are small, rather than going back full-time the minute their leave runs out, but the option doesn't exist. What if that extra six monthe they're suggesting could be spread over a year of every-other-day or half-day work? I'm sure I wouldn't be the only parent thinking that would save my soul alive.
Though the report doesn't detail how, there's also a suggestion to make the early years centres and possibly early kindergarten a year-round thing. The biggest stumbling block to this is probably the teachers' contracts; the second-biggest stumbling block is, again, physical plant issues. Summer downtime is when maintenance is done on school buildings. I think they could probably make this work by using ECE workers for non-school days and certified teachers for the rest. But it will be both tricky and expensive.
Nevertheless I have some reservations.
First, I think combining Early Years centres with schools and kindergartens has the potential to be excellent for kids. I'll be waiting to see how my union responds to this, because so far, they've been against the idea of full-day kindergarten unless it's staffed by their own members. I can see why - ECE workers do not have the training in literacy and assessment that a certified teacher has in Ontario. The only reason the government would like to put ECE workers into that job is that they're an awful lot cheaper. In Ontario, ECE is a two-year community college course, versus teaching's average of five years university. As a result, ECE workers top out at about the salary where teachers start.
The second big problem is physical. Kindergarten and early years centres need classrooms with bathrooms and sinks and water fountains right in the room, and for the early years centres, probably an area that meets Department of Health regulations for preparing snacks. Even schools that have empty rooms don't have rooms that are set up like that. Expanding kindergarten from half-day to full-day requires us to double our space for kindergarten classes, and portables won't cut it. Even empty rooms in most schools will need significant modifications to meet criteria. The result is obvious to me: the schools that are going to get this first are the new schools, the ones that have been built with the knowledge that this was coming down the line and have the extra space with its amenities already accounted for. That means schools like ours - medium needs, small, old, and around the corner from a Catholic school that has all the amenities and has an Early Years centre already - are going to be at the bottom of the list for improvements. I'd be surprised if our school sees this before 2015, with the way the government is hemming and hawing about money.
The last thing I would like to see would be a change to parental leave to allow extended leaves to be taken half-time, rather than full-time as they are now (and as this report suggests.) I know a fair number of people who would be better off working half-time for a few years when their kids are small, rather than going back full-time the minute their leave runs out, but the option doesn't exist. What if that extra six monthe they're suggesting could be spread over a year of every-other-day or half-day work? I'm sure I wouldn't be the only parent thinking that would save my soul alive.
Though the report doesn't detail how, there's also a suggestion to make the early years centres and possibly early kindergarten a year-round thing. The biggest stumbling block to this is probably the teachers' contracts; the second-biggest stumbling block is, again, physical plant issues. Summer downtime is when maintenance is done on school buildings. I think they could probably make this work by using ECE workers for non-school days and certified teachers for the rest. But it will be both tricky and expensive.