Our son Brandon is five years old and scheduled to participate in kindergarten this fall. Brandon and Benjamin are very blessed to attend a high quality early learning that is very supportive of our family’s needs. Because of this ongoing relationship and multiple other factors related to Brandon’s disability (ex: consistency in Brandon’s peers and trained staff) we felt that it would be in his best interest to attend Kindergarten at the same centre this fall. Only problem is: This program is not currently publicly funded by the Department of Education and Early Child Development because they are standing behind the following policy:
M E M O R A N D U M
TO: Kindergarten Owner/Operators
Sonya Corrigan, Executive Director -
Early Childhood Development Association
Lynn Hogan, President – Early Learning Operators of PEI,
Janice Ployer, Chair – Child Care Facilities Board
FROM: Carolyn Simpson, Provincial Kindergarten Program Administrator
DATE: August 21st, 2006
SUBJECT: Funding to New Kindergarten Programs/Policy Change
Effective July 21, 2006 any new applications to operate and receive funding for kindergarten from the Department of Education must meet the following criteria:
a) The Department of Education is satisfied that there is an unmet need for kindergarten spaces in the area; and
b) that public funding be conditional upon a minimum of 10 children being registered in the program.
This policy change does not affect existing kindergarten programs operating prior to July 21, 2006. The current minimum number of 6 still applies to existing programs.
Should you have any questions regarding this policy change do not hesitate to contact me at 902- 569-7526 or cesimpson@edu.pe.ca.
Carolyn
cc: Cathy McCormack, Early Childhood Consultant – Dept. of Social Services & Seniors
That being stated, let’s discuss the above policy. What criterion needs to be met in order for the Department of Education and Early Child Development to be satisfied that there is an unmet need for kindergarten spaces in the area? Brandon attends preschool in the Stratford area so I have done some research…..
The information that I have available to me is that the Glen Stewart Elementary School in Stratford has an enrolment of approximately 110 grade one students each year. The four other (publicly funded) kindergarten programs in the Stratford area, provide a total of approximately 60 kindergarten spaces. Therefore, there are approximately 50 children in the Stratford area who do not have access to kindergarten in this community. The criteria of need: ” a) The Department of Education is satisfied that there is an unmet need for kindergarten spaces in the area” therefore should have been met. I have several colleagues who have asked the Department about their process for determining unmet need and it appears that there is little policy in place as to how unmet need is determined. In fact, it appears that unmet need is based upon individual staff opinion within the Department as opposed to demonstrated community need.
You may wonder why I am fighting this policy, given that in 2-3 years public kindergarten is scheduled to enter the school system. The key reason is that both of my children will be attending kindergarten within the next 3 years. Given this, they will hit the publicly funded system prior to the changes taking place. In addition, there are many other children right across Prince Edward Island that are currently being impacted by this funding policy. The present and short term future still matters to the families who choose to enroll their child(ren) in a kindergarten program of their choice versus the school zone that they live in. There are many factors that parents consider when choosing a child care program for their child(ren). Some of these include the quality of program, availability of space, positive/negative relationship with the parents, work location of parents, reputation of centre and staff, parent testimonials, etc to name a few. Parents should be entitled to their “CHOICE” of “QUALITY” kindergarten programs.
What you may not realize is that, when the Department quietly implemented the new policy in August 2006, they limited Island parents’ choice of access to quality kindergarten programs. They also created a “clique” by protecting current kindergarten programs from any new competition. This policy change is protecting all publicly funded kindergarten programs from any new competition, including kindergarten programs who may not be providing a quality kindergarten program. Just because a standard curriculum is followed by all kindergarten programs, doesn’t guarantee that the program is delivered in a high quality manner. The simple fact is that there are great variations in the level of quality child care and Kindergarten programs across PEI, yet the Department seems to be more concerned about protecting existing funded spaces than it does about the quality of those spaces.
Let’s shine some light on the second criteria in the policy:
b) that public funding be conditional upon a minimum of 10 children being registered in the program.
Don’t get me wrong, I totally believe that Government needs to be accountable for public funding, but come on…..from the outside it certainly appears that they are protecting the existing community based funded kindergarten programs. This system seems to be set up to meet more of the needs of the funded operators and less of the needs of Island families. There is something very wrong with a system that is not balanced in favour of children and families. I question this policy for the important fact that any program that existed before the policy change only needs 6 children enrolled in order to receive funding, but any new programs must have 10 children enrolled. Where is the equality here? I could understand if the Government had only implemented this 6 vs 10 number of enrolment during the first year of transition, but to continue to allow new programs to be at a disadvantage merely because they are new is absolutely unfair. While I acknowledge that it hurts those programs who are trying to add quality options to communities the truth is that who it really hurts are the many children and families who forced to pay for the kindergarten programs that best meet the needs of their family. Here’s a novel idea….why not let the funding follow the child? This would create a system in favour of children rather than operators!
Funny, I thought that there was O tolerance for bullying on PEI. Maybe the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development should go back to kindergarten and learn the basics again. Of course the only problem is that they might have to pay to get into the quality program of their choice; as publicly funded kindergarten is not truly accessible to all on PEI.
1 Comment
July 15, 2008 at 1:45 am
April, you have raised some important points here. There does seem to be something that is unfair about this policy. Let’s hope this posting raises further awareness as to how this policy is impacting both your and other families on PEI.