|
Peel Board to Welcome All First, Second Year Full-Day Kindergarten Students Despite Lack of Provincial Funding
Source: Peel District School Board, February 23, 2011 (press release)
Excerpt: “Faced with continued enrolment growth and significant provincial underfunding for the full-day kindergarten program, the board has chosen to fund the growth beyond ministry funding from reserves and to slightly increase average class size in the program from 26 to two to 28 to two. The board rejected the option of capping enrolment and using a lottery system to determine access. Trustees also rescinded their motion from April 2010 that directed administration to only offer classes based on the provincial funding available for full-day kindergarten. ”
Province Ends Day-Care Expansion Plan After Reaching Goal
Source: Calgary Herald, February 22, 2011
Excerpt: “A provincial government program creating more than 18,000 new child care spaces across Alberta has ended, sparking fear among some day-care advocates that too many centres are still struggling with long waiting lists…. But now that the original goal of creating some 14,000 spaces has been exceeded, Yvonne Fritz, minister of children and youth services, says the department's focus will shift to maintaining the more than 90,000 child care spaces that now exist.”
Spaces Must Be Affordable
Source: Toronto Star, February 21, 2011
Excerpt: “Toronto oversees more than 56,000 licensed child-care spaces. It is the largest system in the country outside Quebec, where parents pay an enviable $7 a day for daycare. Despite its size, some Toronto neighbourhoods have no child-care spaces available at all; others have spaces that no one can afford. There are 17,000 kids waiting for the chance to get one of the city’s 24,000 child-care subsidies. This is a system in crisis. So it is welcome that Mayor Rob Ford has agreed to appoint a task force to report to city council in July on how to “expand access to affordable, quality child care.”"
The Case for Play: How a Handful of Researchers are Trying to Save Childhood
Source: Chronicle for Higher Education (US), February 20, 2011
Excerpt: “…That could almost be the slogan of the New York Coalition for Play, which provided the boxes and junk. The nonprofit association ran one of the two dozen booths at the Ultimate Block Party, an event last fall that brought together companies like Disney, Crayola, and Lego, along with researchers from Columbia and MIT, and attracted thousands of parents and children. The goal was to "celebrate the science of play" and to push back against the notion that education happens only when students are seated at their desks, staring at chalkboards, and scribbling furiously in their notebooks.”
The Child-Care Challenge: Toronto Searching for Solutions
Source: Toronto Star, February 19, 2011
Excerpt: “This month, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford agreed to strike a child care task force to report on how to “expand access to affordable, quality child care.” …. Queen’s Park has not increased the per-day amount of money it pays for child-care subsidies since 1995. The city has been using reserve accounts to top up those subsidies to reflect the real cost of the program…. But there are worries the tight-fisted Ford administration may use the task force to cut costs. Most vulnerable would be 56 city-run child-care centres and one home child-care agency that pay good wages and benefits in a chronically underpaid sector.””
Back to top>
Brussels Calls For 'Universal' Child Care
Source: EurActiv (EU), February 18, 2011
Excerpt: “The European Commission is encouraging member states to invest more resources in making pre-school education available to all children from an early age. "Investing in early education and care is one of the best investments we can make for our children – and for Europe's future," said Androulla Vassiliou, EU commissioner for education, culture, multilingualism and youth.
Minister Promoting Kindergarten Program
Source: Brampton Guardian (ON), February 17, 2011
Excerpt: “The full-day kindergarten program introduced last year, created waiting lists at both the Peel District School Board and the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board. Currently some 35,000 students in Ontario are the beneficiaries of the new curriculum, but plans are underway to ensure in five years, every school in the province offers full-day kindergarten, said Dombrowsky, who has been touring many schools where the program has been up and running. “There are many emerging themes I have noticed as part of my visits,” said Dombrowsky as she took-in the antics of five-year-olds from Brampton. “I see and hear from parents who are excited at what their children do when they come to a full-day kindergarten learning. Also, in every school I visited, the teachers are saying this program, surpasses their expectations.””
Back to top>
Ottawa Daycare Spots Safe This Year
Source: Ottawa Citizen, February 15, 2011
Excerpt: “For childcare agencies that offer subsidized daycare in Ottawa, there's some good news and some bad news. First, the good news: 2011 is looking fairly stable. The city will be able to fund the same number of subsidized positions it has in the past, and agencies are holding their own in the face of Ontario's full-day kindergarten program…”
McGuinty Must Fix Signature Program
Source: Toronto Star, February 14, 2011
Excerpt: “And what will the future bring? Full-day kindergarten — combined with inadequate child care — will be implemented for only 20 per cent of Ontario’s 4- and 5-year-olds by the provincial election that will be held in October. With the present system underfunded and the future up in the air, it’s likely to turn into a political football.”
Back to top>
Daycare: The Plot to Steal Your Child’s Mind
Source: Globe and Mail, February 11, 2011
Excerpt: How do we account for this weird conservative antipathy to something as sensible, practical and non-ideological as ECE? Diane Finley, Mr. Harper's Human Resources Minister, offered a clue the other day when she decried child care because it forced parents to have their children raised by "other people.".... In fact, what the PM and his minister may well fear is that those experts they so disdain are colluding in a vast conspiracy against our children, with ECE as its tool. But to what conceivable end? ….was the fear that ECE, sanctioned by the Ontario Ministry of Education, organized by your local school board, conducted by highly qualified staff, was a diabolical plot to do something terrible, unspeakable, to their children's minds.”
Ontario Seeks Input on Child Care Plan
Source: Hamilton Spectator (ON), February 12, 2011
Excerpt: “…Parker was one of about 45 people who attended the Ministry of Children and Youth Services’ consultation with parents and stakeholders at the Stoney Creek centre Friday afternoon. The session in Hamilton launched the province wide process seeking input on improving services through Best Start Child and Family Centres. “There was a unanimous agreement the programs work. Do they need more? Yeah … especially the interaction of the services,” Parker said. ”
Back to top>
The ABCs of Kindergarten Funding
Source: Toronto Sun, February 12, 2011
Excerpt: “We’ve been told the cost of full-day kindergarten in Ontario will be $1.5 billion when fully implemented. But that’s just for the program. When it comes to what it will cost to create the extra space and facilities for twice as many kindergarten classes as we have now (which is what happens when you amp up kindergarten from a half day to a full day) — no one seems to know. If school boards get their way, it will be in the “hundreds” of millions of dollars for the program’s third year alone, in 2012/13, Education Minister Leona Dombrowsky said last Wednesday at a news conference.”
Ontario Child Care Facing Uncertain Future
Source: Toronto Star, February 11, 2011
Excerpt: “Child-care fees for 4- and 5-year-olds help keep fees down for the younger children who are more costly to serve. With kindergarten-age children leaving daycares, fees will skyrocket for the remaining babies, toddlers and preschoolers. And without new government funding, many daycares, like Brown’s, will collapse….This is on top of chronic provincial underfunding that has caused a widespread shortage of subsidies for low- and moderate-income parents, kept wages low and sent parent fees soaring to between $10,000 and $15,000 a year.”
Back to top>
Grandmother Steps Into the Breach
Source: Toronto Star, February 11, 2011
Excerpt: “Sue Prabhu doesn’t mind the two 90-minute round-trip drives from Mississauga to Toronto every day. The retired provincial bureaucrat loves looking after her 12-month-old granddaughter in her Mississauga home while her Toronto-based son and daughter-in-law work. What makes Prabhu angry, however, is that little Olivia had to spend almost a month in an unlicensed home daycare — where she was left crying alone in the basement — before she was called to the rescue.”
Extended-Day Program Too Expensive for Public School Board
Source: Inside Halton (ON), February 11, 2011
Excerpt: “Ontario’s extended-day program for young learners is too expensive to run for the Halton District School Board. In its first four months at four Halton public schools, the program has run up a $15,000 deficit…. Halton District School Board opened the extended-day program at four of its schools this year. However, the Province changed the policy, now saying the program only needs to run where there is sufficient parent demand and boards have the option to deliver the program through third party providers. Furthermore, the program must break even financially cially, which so far it has not been doing this year. Starting next school year, the public school board staff will no longer provide the program; it will be run by third party providers.”
Back to top>
Playing the Child Care Guilt Card
Source: Framed in Canada, February 11, 2011
Excerpt: “So why do Conservatives deploy a frame that seems at odds with the majority of working families today? And how do they get away with it? Within the neoliberal frame, Conservatives equate the problem of child care with parents’ responsibility to figure it out themselves. In the process, Conservatives tap into parents’ anxieties about leaving their children in other people’s hands while they work. It comes out as child care = bad parenting and it reinforces the conservative value of individual responsibility (none of this ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ stuff for conservatives). On the surface, you’d think it would be a difficult frame to sell because it sounds so, well, 1950s…. Guilt can be a strong emotion, especially since many parents wish they could spend more time at home with their children.”
Debate: Canada Needs a National Child-Care Policy
Source: National Post, February 11, 2011
Excerpt: “The idea of a national childcare program has been around since the Royal Commission on the Status of Women put it on the political agenda in 1970. Arguing that reliable child care is fundamental to women’s equality in employment, the Commission recommended that “the federal government immediately take steps to enter into agreements with provinces leading to adoption of a national Daycare Act.” Most mothers now work outside the home — the first good reason Canada needs a national childcare program. Since the Royal Commission’s report, mothers’ labour-force participation has more than doubled. Young mothers work to contribute to family income, to keep their families out of poverty and to pursue careers — just like young fathers."
Back to top>
Debate: Children are Better Off Being Raised By Their Parents
Source: National Post, February 11, 2011
Excerpt: “If Liberal politicians and early-learning experts are to be believed, Canada is short-changing its children. Rather than encourage — nay, empower — parents to toss their tots into institutional daycare and run back to work, the Conservative government (and Human Resources Minister Diane Finley in particular) have the temerity to suggest that parents should — gasp! — raise their children themselves. Cue the outrage — as well as the claims that children are actually better served by the ministrations of early-childhood educators than by their well-meaning, but perhaps less enlightened, parents.”
Kindergartens Try Out Extended Hours
Source: Toronto Observer, February 11, 2011
Excerpt: ““If you look at educational laws, they don’t even have to be in school until the age of six but now we’re making them go all day [at an earlier age],” she said. “It’s the parent’s job to prepare [younger children] to be here.” According to Ontario’s education ministry, third-parties like the YMCA are running before- and after-school programs in a third of schools offering full-day kindergarten. Rob Armstrong, senior vice-president of YMCA Ontario, said the YMCA community has been a “strong supporter of the government’s ground breaking full-day learning program.””
Back to top>
Public Schools Will Combat Homophobic Bullying
Source: Edmonton Journal, February 11, 2011
Excerpt: “The 17-year-old Jasper Place High School student remembers getting the message early on that "being gay was wrong, or it was something you could mock." So Brulotte is pleased to hear Edmonton Public Schools, with support of trustees, is devising new guidelines for how schools should deal with bullying and issues related to sexual orientation…."There are kids going into kindergarten who do have two moms or do have two dads," said Brulotte…"It may seem early and I think elementary school is what parents are going to have the biggest issue with, but I feel like it's something that, if done, would lead to a positive solution. I don't see anything negative coming out of it, other than the parental backlash."
Transgendered-Rights Bill Headed for Defeat in Tory-Held Senate
Source: Globe and Mail, February 10, 2011
Excerpt: “Once again, the House of Commons has passed legislation against the will of Prime Minister Stephen Harper – this time, to protect the rights of transgender and transsexual citizens. Once again, it is likely to die in the Senate”
Back to top>
Child Care Centres Feel the Financial Pinch With the Move To All Day Kindergarten
Source: Globe and Mail, February 10, 2011
Excerpt: “Kenora MPP Howard Hampton heard first hand during a visit to Kids Zone/Sunshine Nursery Wednesday how the introduction of full day Junior and Senior Kindergarten programs at Ontario schools impacts licensed day care centres. "We're concerned about not being able to have as many full-time staff and going with more part-time casuals”…. "We would really like to have a national child care program which, like education, is based on an annual budget. Currently, we rely on spaces and stabilization dollars and we don't know what they're going to be from year to year."”
Budgets Can Have a Positive or Negative Impact on Equality
Source: Times and Transcript (NB), February 10, 2011
Excerpt: “… there are areas of spending that affect women's rights, women's participation in society and women's safety, that must be protected. Quality child care services are, first and foremost, a right of every child but they are also necessary for labour force participation and economic well being…. workers in underpaid groups such as home support, child care centres and transition house services await adjustments after much time spent evaluating the distance between what they are paid and what they should be paid.”
Back to top>
A Response to the Government of Ontario on the Best Start Child and Family Centre Consultation
Source: Atkinson Centre, February 2011
Excerpt: “If there was one thing the government could do right now for children and families in Ontario, what could that be? For several decades we have complained about the lack of affordable and high quality child care, the long wait lists for subsidies, the lack of programs for children with special needs and the broken patchwork of services we do offer.
We have an opportunity to build a foundation for services for children and their families – but that means making a radical move toward something different and innovative. It means moving away from the rhetoric of business as usual, working within the silos that fit like an old sweater but are starting to smell a little mouldy.”
Why the Tories’ $100-A-Month Child-Care Plan Isn’t Enough
Source: This Magazine, February 9, 2011
Excerpt: “These are minor gripes, though, compared to the fact that the math just doesn’t work: with daycare costs often well in excess of $7,000 a year, $1,200 is simply not enough. Battle argues that in order for a system of cash payments to meaningfully reduce poverty and help families, the older Canada Child Tax Benefit would need to be boosted to $5,000 per child per year for low- and middle-income families. Food Banks Canada recommends the same figure as part of its larger argument that a well funded child care plan would be one of the most effective ways to fight hunger and child poverty.”
Back to top>
Project Addresses Early Childcare Challenges
Source: Fort McMurray Today (AB), February 8, 2011
Excerpt: “The Early Child Development Mapping Project, or ECMap, is a five-year research project contracted by Alberta Education looking at factors that affect child development as part of the government's Early Child Development Mapping Initiative, which started in 2009, data will be collected from communities. In Fort McMurray…. there are many services available here but it's connecting them all together and making them known to families that's a challenge. In addition, there's problems with continuity of staff, retaining and training those people.”
The Child-Care Challenge: Parents Deserve a Real Choice
Source: Toronto Star, February 4, 2011 (editorial)
Excerpt: “Canada is one of only a handful of developed nations without a national child-care plan. The coming federal election campaign is the time to debate how to fill that void. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says his party would deliver “a national investment in learning” that starts with “early learning and child care for every child that needs it.”….The NDP’s child-care critic, Olivia Chow, has introduced a private member’s bill that would commit federal funding to high quality, universally accessible and affordable child care.”
Back to top>
Childcare Provider Soon to be Household Name
Source: Financial Post, February 4, 2011
Excerpt: “This might be the first time you’ve heard the name Edleun Group Inc., but chances are, it won’t be the last. Especially if you’re in family-making mode. “Edleun, which owns 20 child care centres in Alberta, aims to rapidly consolidate Canada’s very fragmented child care market through acquisitions and development, with little competition expected for its growth strategy”…”
Contact Your MP: Private Members' Bill-C-389, An Act to Amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and Criminal Code
Private Members' Bill-C-389, An Act to Amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and Criminal Code (gender identity and gender expression), is now up for third and final reading -ask your MP to vote in favour of the bill to protect the rights of transgender Canadians.
Transgender people face higher levels of discrimination and violence, increased rates of underemployment, and often are denied housing and access to medical services. By contacting your MP and urging them to vote in favour of the bill, we can help bring about these long overdue protections.
Click to contact your MP now: http://petition.web.net/caw/node/39
Back to top>
Poll - Child care: Would You Prefer Benefit Cheques or a National Fay Care System?
Source: cbc.ca
“Do you have young children? Do you prefer receiving a monthly $100 benefit for your child care needs or would you rather see a national subsidized day care system? Let us know in the comments below.”
Five Years On, Children Still Wait for Quality Care
Source: parentcentral.ca (Toronto Star), February 4, 2011
Excerpt: “Without a national child-care plan, Canada seems doomed to remain a child-care laggard on the international stage. A 2008 study by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) ranked Canada dead last with Ireland in early learning and child-care services among 25 developed countries. Friendly’s data shows fewer than 20 per cent of Canadian children under age 6 have access to government-regulated care. Meanwhile, more than 70 per cent of mothers of young children are in the paid labour force — one of the highest workforce participation rates for mothers in the developed world.”
Back to top>
Conservatives Draw Fire Over Comment on Child Care
Source: Toronto Star, February 3, 2011
Excerpt: “Human Resources Minister Diane Finley has accused the Liberals of wanting to revive a national child-care program so that parents don’t have to raise their own children. “It’s the Liberals who wanted to ensure that parents are forced to have other people raise their children. We do not believe in that,” Finley said in the Commons Thursday, the same day that Liberals were promising to revive the national program scrapped by the Conservatives five years ago this week.”
McGuinty Government Seeking Input To Help Improve Services For Young Children
Source: Government of Ontario, February 2, 2011 (news release)
Excerpt: “Ontario is seeking input on the best way to provide more timely, effective and convenient supports to children and their families. The input will help the province develop Best Start Child and Family Centres in communities across the province. Building on the government's full-day kindergarten plan to help kids get a stronger start, developing these centres will help integrate and connect services for families of young children, providing parents with the right information and supports at the right time. The final framework is expected to be released this summer. Participate online or download the form at www.ontario.ca/beststart...”
Back to top>
Quebec Must Fund Kindergarten for 4-Year-Olds: Board
Source: Montreal Gazette, February 3, 2011
Excerpt: “”"Almost everyone in North America has 4-year-old kindergarten, except us," said Marcus Tabachnick, chairman of the Pearson board. "It's in more than 40 states in the U.S. It's in Ontario and Alberta. Quebec has always rightly been proud of its social programs, but it's lagging behind on this."…. "Daycare is not preparing kids for school, but this can," said Tabachnick. "We want Quebec to understand the importance of this. It's coming out of our operating funds, but in Ontario the government has invested $1 billion in providing full-day kindergarten for 4-year-olds because the research is clear."”
Yukon Francophone School Board Trial Winds Down
Source: cbc.ca, February 2, 2011
Excerpt: “The francophone board, which operates École Émilie-Tremblay in Whitehorse, accuses the Yukon government of withholding federal funds that were earmarked for the school. Lawyers for the board argued that the government has failed to meet its legal obligation to education "francophone right-holders" in their own language. The territorial government argues that the francophone school board is adequately funded…. government lawyers rejected the school board's arguments and cost estimates for the school expansion, arguing that enrollment is still at just 60 per cent of the building's capacity..”
Back to top>
B.C. Failing Its Aboriginal Children
Source: Globe and Mail, January 31, 2011
Excerpt: “Ms. Turpel-Lafond examined the cases of 21 children who died in B.C. before the age of two between 2007 and 2009. Fifteen of the 21 children were aboriginal, which has raised fresh questions about the government’s current apprehension and placement policies for members of this community. About five years ago, the province, under pressure from aboriginal leaders, decided that, all things being equal, it was best to put aboriginal children taken from their parents into the care of relatives or someone else in their community. While Ms. Turpel-Lafond supports the idea in theory, she concedes that in practice it can often do more harm than good. In some cases, the policy is proving deadly.”
2011 Pre-Budget Submission to the Finance and Economic Affairs Committee
Source: Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario, January 31, 2011
Excerpt: “President Sam Hammond participated in the pre-budget hearings held by the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs. The president encouraged the government reduce the deficit at a slower pace in order to sustain investments in key public services such as health and education, and programs that cushion low-income and unemployed Ontarians from the worst effects of the fragile economy.”
Back to top>
St. Albert Kids Excelling at Full-Day Kindergarten: Teacher
Source: St. Albert Gazette (AB), January 28, 2011
Excerpt: “A local kindergarten teacher says children who attend full-day kindergarten every day have a significant advantage over those who attend an alternate day or half-day kindergarten program. Lindsay Pratt, who teaches both kindergarten programs at Albert Lacombe School, said her full-day kindergarten students are grasping concepts much quicker than those in the alternate day program. “Their literacy skills are far beyond where they would normally be at this time of year in the half-day or the alternate day just because they are getting that double exposure,” she said.”
Child Development Not Linked to Length of Parental Leave, Government Argues
Source: Globe and Mail, January 28, 2011
Excerpt: “In a fight to deny double paid parental leaves to an Ottawa couple who have twins, the federal government is citing a study that challenges a motherhood assumption: Longer maternity leaves, the research concludes, do not improve early child development…. Never mind the mommy wars over staying at home versus rejoining the work force, the question of whether longer parental leaves have tangible advantages for children is the subject of great debate among sociologists and economists.”
Back to top>
Early Learning Gets $900,000
Source: Daily Gleaner (NB), January 26, 2011
Excerpt: “Two community-based groups are getting $900,000 over three years from the provincial government to improve training for early learning and childhood care professionals…."The end goal is to have an exemplary workforce in early learning and childcare and to be seen as professionals and to be able to offer quality, inclusive programs." The money is coming from the provincial government's Early Learning and Child Care Trust Fund. The project includes measuring and sustaining quality, developing and enhancing leadership in the sector and building the capacity of Early Childhood Care and Education New Brunswick, including its role as a champion for inclusion.”
Community Donations Revive Full-Day Kindergarten
Source: Basking Ridge Patch (NJ, USA), January 24, 2011
Excerpt: “…the Board of Education on Monday voted to accept $420,000 in donations to return full-day kindergarten to next year's budget — a unanimous decision that drew thunderous clapping and a standing ovation from the audience….The Board of Education had cut funding for the full-day kindergarten program and for one instructional period at Ridge High School at a meeting in November. School officials are grappling with a loss of millions of dollars of state aid in the past year or so.”
Back to top>
|
