As I mentioned yesterday, civic elections are rapidly approaching in our neck of the woods. Today we received a mailer with info from our council and mayoral candidates. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any info about the school trustee candidates, so I did some googling and came across an article here.
In the article the 4 incumbents and 2 challengers answer the question, “School District 43 has been grappling with declining enrolment. Name one measure or idea you’d push for to deal with fewer kids in schools.” And each of the 4 incumbents proposes all-day kindergarten as a solution. This isn’t a new idea, in fact it was floated in February by the provincial government, and over the summer there was public consultation. For the record, I did take the chance to submit my feedback. 
The proposal is that as early as next fall there could be all-day kindergarten for 5-year-olds. Following that, they would introduce full-day programs for 4-year-olds in 2010, and 3-year-olds by 2012. You can read more about this, and who’s supporting the initiative, here and here.
Now, the proposed programs are ‘optional’. However, once they’re introduced and pretty much everyone’s doing them, how optional are they really? As I understand it kindergarten is technically not mandatory today. In practice, though, it pretty much is. My take, therefore, is that there’s not much option at all.
I’m pretty appalled by this initiative, and my local candidates’ support of it. This quote from the BCTF’s second vice-president is sort of frightening:
I think it’s important that the students are at school all day, and we can assess their needs and better give them the services that they need.
EEP! Small children need to go to school all day so that teachers can ‘assess their needs’? I value educators and the job they do. They give so much to society and our children. But they’re not responsible for deciding what my kids need, I am. And if that means that my neighbourhood school closes and I have to drive to a school a little farther away, so be it. Of course the BCTF and CUPE want to keep schools open – they’re advocating for their members. That’s their job. My job is to advocate for my children.
So, if I’m so opposed to all-day preschool and kindergarten in the public schools, why do I send my child to daycare? It’s a good question. And my answer is that I’m not opposed to early childhood learning, I’m opposed to what amounts to a loss of choice. If there is publicly-funded and free early learning, then I think we would lose the choice to send our kids to part-time, more flexible programs. Our preschools as we know them would likely close, and then your only choice would be the full-day, 5 day per week model. If there were more flexibility, then I might come on board.
I have an hour-long commute to work. Not great, but there it is. I have made the choice to work outside my home 3 full days a week, so that I can reduce the time I spend away from my kids. This means that I am away from my kids approximately 30 hours per week. If they were to attend school full days it would mean that I would need before and after school care on work days, and we would be apart more like 42 hours a week. 
Enlisting younger children in the public system isn’t a solution to declining enrollment. In a few years we would be back in the same place. If we have fewer children, we have to face the music and recognize that we don’t need the same services for them. It’s unfortunate, but it’s the truth.
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