THUNDER BAY -- Full-day kindergarten will be available at all elementary public schools starting next fall.
The Lakehead District School Board voted unanimously at Tuesday night’s meeting in favour of a recommendation to have full-time junior and senior kindergarten at all elementary schools starting in September.
The expansion comes one year ahead of the Ministry of Education’s plan to have all schools have full-day kindergarten by 2015-2016.
Cathi Siemieniuk, director of education for Lakehead Public Schools, said they will be offering the full-day JK and SK programs for anyone who’s enrolled with the school board.
She said they will be assigning the program as a priority in order to allocate grants toward it. The board also has the option of using its reserve funds to cover the cost.
“We’re implemented this a year early because we can,” Siemieniuk said. “We still have full-time kindergarten classes in some of our schools that the board funds so it is really just reusing the resources that we currently have in place. We also think it’s probably the best message for parents. We can say to them ‘we offer full-time kindergarten everywhere’.”
The public board has offered full-time SK at a number of schools since 2002 but additional funding from the ministry in 2010 allowed them to phase in the program in nine schools over the past two years.
Six other schools were scheduled to receive the program this year with the remaining eight schools to have full-time kindergarten by 2014.
Siemieniuk said classes will still have to stay at a certain size because the they won’t fall under the ministry’s funded program.
“It won’t appear any different to parents because their students will still attend full-time and the program will be consistent,” she said. “There will be classes with averages of 26 with an Early Childhood Educator and a teacher.
“Under the primary classes caps, we have to keep classes of 20 with a max of 23. There will be still staff; it could be just a teacher or a teacher with an ECE. It will depend on the school and the numbers.”
Registration week for the program starts on Feb. 4 but Siemieniuk added that parents can register at any time.
Prior to the vote, board members expressed their support for the expansion.
Trustee Karen Wilson said she was excited to hear of this expansion.
“As a parent who raised her children at one of our rural schools, this is impacting all of our rural schools,” Wilson said. “They tend to be at the last of the list to be incorporated into this program. I’m really glad that it is going to be inclusive to all schools.”
