With another school year underway, Flin Flon and Creighton education officials are earning both A’s and F’s for resisting calls to establish full-day kindergarten.
École McIsaac School, Ruth Betts Community School and Creighton Community School offer only the traditional half-day kindergarten even as the full-day version becomes increasingly common across Canada.
“My number-one concern about going to full-day kindergarten is that at five years old, and some kids are four, they’re [already] exhausted at the end of the day,” says Melissa Danis, a Creighton mother of two.
Danis was among the parents who spoke out against full-day kindergarten when the Creighton school board was contemplating the notion two years ago.
Danis worries that children would be too drained from a full day to effectively learn and that there would be a greater emotional impact on kids who, like hers, have not attended full-day daycare.
“That’s a long time to be away from home,” says Danis, whose oldest child just entered kindergarten and whose youngest will do so next year.
Across the border in Flin Flon, Superintendent of Schools Blaine Veitch says some parents have inquired about full-day kindergarten.
“I think it would be fair to say there would be interest locally if a full-day program was to be offered,” says Veitch.
Veitch adds, however, that there has been no extensive discussion at the school board level about full-day kindergarten.
That’s fine with Tammy Dowell, a Flin Flon mother of two whose youngest enters kindergarten next year.
“From taking my daughter to kindergarten last year, it was a big adjustment going from nursery school to kindergarten and five days a week,” says Dowell.
That transition would be all the more difficult under a full-day system, Dowell says, as children need a half-day schedule to adjust to being away from their parents.
Support
But not all local parents are quick to reject full-day kindergarten.
Amy Sapergia Green, a Flin Flon mother of four, believes full-day kindergarten would benefit children who lack enriching home environments.
Sapergia Green, whose children are already in or have been in kindergarten, believes a full-day program would mean improved school readiness and likely higher physical activity levels, better socialization skills and less “screen time.”
Sapergia Green says a full-day program would also be more cost-effective for parents who rely on daycare for their kindergarten-aged children.
Chantelle McDermott would also prefer full-day kindergarten, saying her twin sons entering kindergarten in Creighton today would welcome the extra time at school.
McDermott says Kaleb and Koen would like to leave for school in the morning with their older brother but will have to wait until the afternoon for their half-day of class.
When she was on parent council at École McIsaac School, Sapergia Green says parents would talk about the merits of full-day kindergarten.
“I think that it’s something that parents are interested in,” Sapergia Green says, adding that some still have questions about it.
Price tag
For many parents, as well as taxpayers at large, some of those questions will inevitably revolve around cost.
Though both Saskatchewan and Manitoba allow individual school boards to establish full-day kindergarten programs, the price tag is borne by those boards.
When Creighton school officials examined the concept two years ago, expenses would have involved another full-time teacher – the average Saskatchewan educator earns about $73,000 a year – as well as some facility upgrades.
Stacy Lair, principal of Creighton Community School, says cost was one of the reasons the school ultimately rejected the idea. There were also concerns over whether young children could handle the physical exertion of a full day.
“We weren’t convinced that the benefits of it would outweigh the negative side of things,” says Lair.
Lair says Creighton officials began talking about full-day kindergarten as one of the options to increase students’ classroom time at the directive of the provincial government.
In Flin Flon, Veitch, the superintendent of schools, says the initial impact of adding full-day kindergarten would be 2.5 additional teachers at a combined cost of about $190,000.
There would likely also be expenses associated with finding more classroom space and relocating existing programs, Veitch says.
Though full-day kindergarten reportedly exists in seven provinces and territories, not all of them mandate the program. Ontario, the largest province, has begun requiring the program this school year.
Refusal
Manitoba’s NDP government has surprised some observers with its refusal to fund full-day kindergarten even though, according to The Canadian Press, the province’s own research is largely supportive of the concept.
When the Manitoba School Boards Association, a lobby group, asked the NDP to pay for full-day kindergarten programs where they already exist, such as in Winnipeg, the answer came back a firm no.
Colleen McKee, now a Flin Flon city councillor, opposed full-day kindergarten throughout her eight years on the Flin Flon school board. Her position hasn’t changed.
“Children’s formative years should be spent with their greatest teachers – their parents,” says McKee, a mother of four. “A full day for these little guys is too much.”
For his part, Manitoba Education Minister James Allum believes the benefits of full-day kindergarten are unclear.
“I think it’s fair to say that the jury is still out on the entire value of full-day kindergarten, either from an academic stance, an emotional stance or a social stance,” Allum said earlier this year, as quoted by The Canadian Press.
