Ontario "blending kindergarten and daycare"

I'm actually surprised that there hasn't been more discussion on babble about this issue. I was very impressed with the report that was brought down and if McGuinty acts on it I will give credit where credit is due - though It won't make me vote Liberal.

I gues it just means that babblers are bored with "irrelevant" issues like the future of child care. i mean who wants to chat about DULL stuff like that when we could have 150 posts within half an hour about the latest shenanigans involving the UJA and York University. This is a perfect example of how what passes for politiocal dialogue in supposedly leftwing circles is completely disconnected to the needs or the average person.

Full-Day Kindergarten Best Delivered by Certified Teachers

Quote:

“ETFO rejects Dr. Pascal’s notion of replacing qualified teachers in Kindergarten programs with staff with lower credentials,” says David Clegg, President, Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO). “The proposed model reduces student contact with a qualified teacher to only one half day. This is not full-day Kindergarten.”

[SNIP]

“We expect the Premier to fulfill his campaign promise to implement full-day Kindergarten programs in Ontario’s elementary schools; not to implement a watered down and cheaper version of what he promised to parents who trusted him with their vote,” said Clegg.

The plan as proposed, the one you are applauding, and promoting already has the implimentation details. These are not just "details" for those who will lose their jobs. The plan is to reduce Kindergarden teachers to half day, as opposed to full day which is what it is now. I see you are already working up to sacrificing existing programs, jobs and the quality of education.

That is one small detail that makes up about 1% of the proposal. The next step is to propose that it be amended or to lobby McGuinty to change it if and when he brings in legislation. Right now this is just the report of a commission and let's face it most commission reports end up gathering dust and being ignored. Chances are that if McGuinty does bring in legistlation it will be quite different to what is being proposed by the commission - which is probably just a wish list. The real battle right now is against editorials and lobbying from rightwing forces who HATE the idea of there being any kind of a child care system at all.

Right now there is a CRISIS in Ontario because of the chaotic shambolic early child care "system" (if it could even be called that). If you have a child under the age of 6 - it is catastrophic. The vast majority of parens have to work and right now life is a dizzying nightmare of waking up at the crack of dawn and taking kids to various unregulated private child care services

I can understand where the teachers are coming from. They have to protect their turf - just like doctors who lobby ferociously to make sure that nurse practitionars aren't allowed to do anything.

I'm sure some people objected to medicare when it was first brought in because it didn't put all doctors on salary and make them direct employees of the government - they may have had a point - but do you think it would have been wrth sacrificing the entire medicare system just to satisfy a few ideologues who say "unless it's 100% of what i want, I don't want it. I don't want 99% I want 100%. Give me 100% or give me NOTHING". I just don't find that to be a constructive approach.

I think that the NDP and unions should lobby and fight ferociously to improve working conditions of child care workers - but that doesn't mean that they should extend that to trying to shoot down the whole idea of creating a universal affordable child care system in Ontario.

For Ontario? ;)

I am not opposed to having children age 4 and 5 spend a half of a day in a public school setting with a qualified, and unionized ECE worker and half a day with a teacher. The attending half a day is BS.

But there needs to be universal day care for those under 4 too, unionized would be preferrable too.

Good points, remind.

Well still stock, it would take very little changing to have half day split classes, as opposed to alternate full days, no days, and it would be better for parents, because they have to pay day care costs even for the days their child does not attend.

I would imagine parents lobbied for alternate days instead of half days, as that would be easy for them with child care, even if they had to pay for no attendance days. It is pretty damn hard in most jobs to dash out and get your child from school and take them to day care for a half of a day, or to pick them up from day care and take them to school.

Moreover, if this is the case in some schools,  then teachers for kindergarten would actually get 2 more days work, in the schools that formerly would have had had alternating days, under a half a day split model for the classes.

ETA:

Then of course there is there is the reality that by including 4 year olds in this new model, that in fact there will also have to be double the amount of kindergarten teachers hired, in some jurisdictions, or class sizes would be doubled.

I think it was in the ONDP platform in 2003 but not in 2007.

Stockholm wrote:

A lot of schools in Ontario have kindergarten on alternate full days instead of an half days.

The only reasons school boards changed to alternate full days is because they wanted to do away with busing the kids home from kindergarten at noon and another bunch back to kindergarten to save money (not because it was best for the children) but if they were at school all day this would not be an issue so it is likely they would return to half day.  Just a note as well, to stay in the daycare portion of the day parents would have to pay $27 a day so it is not free.

http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/650782

"Just a note as well, to stay in the daycare portion of the day parents would have to pay $27 a day so it is not free."

It would be nice if it was free - but that is still VASTLY cheaper than any of the ramshackle private child care services people currently rely on. Also, the proposal is for people to be able to leave their children in kindergarten/childcare for up to 11 hours a day from 7am to 6pm - that is was more than a full school day.

and this stuff sounds pretty good as well:

"To give parents more time to bond with their babies and reduce the need for infant child care, the report also recommends an additional six months of parental leave by 2020, including six weeks exclusively for the father or non-birthing parent. This is up from the current 52-week parental leave funded through employment insurance.

The plan would include self-employed parents; flexibility for new parents to return to work part-time; and 10 days of legislated leave annually for parents of children under 12. However, the report doesn't say how these new parental benefits would be funded.

For children younger than 4, Ontario's patchwork of children's services – from parenting centres to daycares – would be consolidated into one-stop Best Start Child and Family Centres, preferably located in schools. These community hubs would fall under the mandate of a new early learning division in the ministry of education and be overseen by municipalities, which have authority over other services for families including recreation, libraries and public health."

huh, seems like it is just a smoke and mirrors action then, if it is not a full day of school and it is basically a half day, day care that the parents have to pay for.

Stockholm wrote:

remind wrote:

huh, seems like it is just a smoke and mirrors action then, if it is not a full day of school and it is basically a half day, day care that the parents have to pay for.

No, the full school day would be free - what parenst would pay extra for would if they need their kids taken care of for hours that are OUTSIDE of the kindergarten school day (ie: 7-9am and 3-6 pm)

Parents pay $27 for any hours outside of traditional school hours - for kindergarten traditional school hours are 9-12 or12:30-3:30 or every other day (not the typical 9-3:30 for grade one and up).  So parents would be required to pay for anything outside of traditional school hours.

Early Learning wrote:

Refuge wrote:

That's nice but I would like to see proof not speculation. 

i'll find it soon (i'll start reading the report when i've a moment - maybe you could do the same) - but where's your proof? You're also speculating.

Look, I'm not saying Dalton is suddenly great now. He isn't. He'll just do it to get soft ndp votes. Still, better than nothing.

I am just going by the wording which is very careful not to use the words free all day, ECE progamming at no charge after 9 or before 4.  I think people should wait for the specifics before they start talking about the windfall of free all day programming for 4 and 5 year olds.

Is it specualtion?

As again now,  I am not so sure, refuge's point is valid and it makes a great deal of sense, why would they mean 7-9 and 3-6? And thus leave out the other 3 hrs of "regular school time' spent with a ECE? 

And  now that I come to think of it, why would parents have their children in a school setting for 11 hrs a day anyway? They may as well just put them into a boarding school and leave them there.

And no stock, Grade 1 and up students are not too old for ECE, it is illegal to leave your 6 year old at home alone for any length of time.

okay, I can see that early learning, but  IMV, providing 27 bucks a day, day care does not help the plight of the working poor women, nor their children.

Moreover, would the 27 bucks a day be covered  in current day care subsidies? or would it be on top of current day care subsidies?

Of course you do stockholm, I guess you either do not have children, or are not low income if you do.

http://www.rev.gov.on.ca/english/guides/itrp/occs.html.

http://www.childcareontario.org/?cat=3&paged=2

Having said that McGuinty did try to gut it too.

well some children must be able to get into them without being senior citizens eh, or they would not be full.

BC has had subsidized day care for low income earners for decades, what is up with you people in Ontario? ;)