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Parents who were hoping to secure a Kindergarten space for their child in the downtown Yaletown area of Vancouver had a tough challenge this week. Due to a shortage of spaces at the local Elsie Roy elementary school parents camped out overnight in an effort to secure the few spaces available. Children who don't get into the spaces will be forced to attend other schools in the Vancouver area.

From a recent Vancouver Sun article –

Parents have been lining up to enroll their children at Elsie Roy since it opened. Historically, an overflow of kindergarten students has gone to neighbouring schools, including Lord Roberts, Roberts Annex, Strathcona and Simon Fraser.

But parents argue they shouldn’t have to enroll their children in schools such as Strathcona, located in the Downtown Eastside, because it’s too far to walk and isn’t a savoury neighbourhood.

“Saying there’s capacity at Strathcona doesn’t cut it because nobody wants to go there,” Tavakoli said.

An additional article can be found here.

Clearly there is debate among parents regarding sending children to schools such as Strathcona which is located in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. Here are some interesting comments from the Vancouver Sun comments section on this issue.

Patrick Byrne

January 06, 2009 – 1:25 PM

My child is presently enrolled in the French immersion kindergarten program at Strathcona Elementary. His teacher is experienced and has a wonderful rapport with the children. My child comes home loving school and full of enthusiasm for learning. In the four months he has been in kindergarten he has acquired developmental skills that reflect a robust learning environment that I would be hardpressed to find anywhere. The accessibility of French Immersion is an added bonus. Both his high-school age babysitters are alumni of Strathcona, and they are well-adapted young people with a solid academic grounding. I understand the issue of transportation when selecting a school for one's child, but I challenge the parents in the downtown peninsula to put aside any misconceptions about Strathcona being a school where their child would receive an inferior education. If I felt my child's future was being compromised by his attending Strathcona, he would be out of there in a heartbeat. But quite the opposite is the case. As for the Strathcona neighbourhood in which the school is located, I invite parents to come and take a stroll, have their kids play on the playground at MacLean Park, have a coffee at a local cafe, and then decide if the area is "unsavoury". The many families, including ourselves, who have moved into the neighbourhood in recent years certainly think quite the opposite.

Maureen

January 05, 2009 – 9:08 AM

Camping out to get a place for your child in kindergarten is crazy! I went to Lord Roberts and did kindergarten 40 years ago…it is a good school but you would think in 40 years of growth the government would have built other schools and especially in Yaletown where growth has been enourmous in the past 15 years. SO much money went into rezoning of Yaletown for restuaurants, shops and living that what about a good school??? the priorities are so backwards it make me ill just thinking about it. I also do not feel kids should be redirected to other schools far away from their neighbourhood.

Andrew Storrs

January 04, 2009 – 11:47 PM

While Strathcona is a fine school (and has a fantastic kindergarten program) it's not exactly around the corner. I know for me with a younger child currently enrolled in daycare near Elsie Roy the need to drop one child at daycare then travel to Strathcona and drop the other one, and then do it all again at the end of the day will add an hour to my workday. Additionally because we live downtown we only have one car and for my wife to do the same routine everyday would take 2x as long. It's time the province stopped delaying year after year and started construction on the 2 additional schools promised for the area. Why they built a single 300 space elementary in an area that was built to house >10,000 and marketed at young families is beyond ridiculous. And why after 5 years and increasing enrollments have they not switched to a lottery model like they were forced to do with the French Immersion program after the line ups there got silly. Oh and just as an FYI to any readers, this comment was posted from my iPhone from inside the school gymnasium (which is currently looking like a psuedo refuge camp) while I wait with 24 (no make that 24 now) other families for registration to open tomorrow at 8am.

This is not the first time that parents have been faced with lining up for child care or education programs for their children in the Lower Mainland of BC. Last year parents in Richmond were faced with a similar challenge to secure child care spaces for Kindergarten age students.

After fielding a call today from a corporate client with an employee who was desperate to find child care I came across this article by Shannon Proudfoot. Certainly, there is no new news here…but it does reinforce the desperate situation that many parents are finding themselves in.

When word got out that five daycare spots were opening up at a local community centre, parents in Richmond, B.C. camped on sidewalks for days. In Winnipeg, a childcare centre had to issue a memo warning parents to stop pestering and bribing staff.

Elsewhere across the country, a worsening shortage of daycare spots is pushing parents make obsessive phone calls, and even going as far, according to one daycare professional, as to bring relatives from their home countries on temporary visas to care for children or time second pregnancies to take advantage of sibling wait-list policies.

"When we see parents reacting really strongly, we know it’s from a place of great anxiety, and that desperation is pushing them to extremes," says Bev Christian, assistant director of the University of British Columbia Child Care Services.

May is child care month in British Columbia. Certainly there are initiatives happening within the Province to support the development of new child care spaces, however I continue to wonder and worry how about the long term sustainability of many of BC’s child care programs. Parent fees often don’t cover the true cost of child care and the sector is still recovering from the reductions in funding under the Child Care Operating Funding Program. This, combined with a lack of affordable places to operate quality programs, a shortage of trained early childhood educators and constant public policy changes are making for the perfect storm within the sector.

We are experiencing a critical shortage of trained early childhood educators in BC and across Canada. It is the norm for child care facilities to seek licensing exemptions in many areas of BC to deal with the staffing problems they are facing. Several other Provinces are providing higher wage enhancement subsidies and innovative programs in an effort to attract and retain their early childhood educators. Alberta is an excellent example of a Province that is really making great strides in this area. I wonder how many ECE’s we in BC are losing to Alberta?

Fees for child care programs and services only seem to be getting higher each year. For many families the cost of purchasing child care for multiple young children often far exceeds their monthly housing costs. (Which says a lot in BC, where the cost of real estate and affordable housing is among the highest in Canada.) Further, the long waiting lists that parents face to access quality programs in many communities is at an all time crisis point. It is possible, that in some areas of the Lower Mainland of BC, families who are on waiting lists for infant and toddler child care will never actually secure a child care space.

So the question is, where do these children go? What does a parent do when they cannot find child care? There are many answers to this. Parents face tough decisions everyday as they struggle to secure affordable, quality and accessible child care. In many cases these children end up being cared for in unlicensed, informal care settings. Some of this care is quality, but much of it is also not. In many cases, mothers (and sometimes fathers) decide that they are unable to return to the workforce until their children are older and enter the school system. While in some cases this is an acceptable solution, in other situations it puts families under increased financial pressure due to the loss of income they experience by having one parent stay home. Further, skilled employees who don’t return to work are a true loss for employers who are facing an ever increasing shortage of workers to choose from.

The solution? The solutions that are needed to address this true crises are both long and varied. There are pros and cons to every possible option. Skilled advocates will argue that universal child care is the answer, others will suggest that better tax benefits for stay at home parents are the solution. Moving three, four and five year olds into all day school based programs also seems to be an option up for much discussion these days. All of these options (and many more) are possible solutions. Most of all though, I believe that what we need is strong, ongoing and committed investment in children and families by all levels of government, communities and employers. No one organization, entity or solution can truly fix this situation. The fact of the matter is that we all have a part to play…so let’s get on with it. It truly does make good economic sense. Further, it really is about so much more than child care. It is about ensuring we as a society can sustain our health, wellbeing and economic strengths for the future generations yet to come.

So call your MLA and remind them that while May is Child Care Month in BC, we must also pay attention to it the other eleven months of the year as well.

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Vancouver parents camp out in snow to secure Kindergarten spaces

The long, long waiting game for child care spaces