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Due to lack of interest expressed by parents, the Upper Grand District School Board will not offer the extended day program at 13 schools where full day junior and senior kindergarten classes will take place.
"I'm not surprised," said Guelph Liberal MPP Liz Sandals, a former school board trustee. "Most of the preliminary data I was receiving sounded as if ... it might not be offered."
The school board in February surveyed parents of new kindergarten students to see if they wished to enrol their children in the extended program, which offered before and after school child care for junior and senior kindergartners and students in Grade 1 and Grade 2.
The board in June then surveyed parents of all those groups and again found little interest.
"We suspect fees are an issue," the board's communications officer Maggie McFadzen said.
The board set fees of $10 for morning care, $17 for after school care or $27 for both.
"They are more than what licensed child care operators charge," McFadzen said.
Although McFadzen admitted the fees were high, she was quick to note the board's fees were "neither the highest nor lowest in the province."
An enrolment of at least 20 children was required to support the two-staff model, which included one dedicated early childhood educator and an assistant planned for the programs.
But even by opening the program to children in Grades 1 and 2, providing they did not exceed 25 per cent of total enrolment, there was a lack of interest and the board determined the program would not run.
Sandals said several factors, including cost, demographics and pre-existing child-care arrangements for some families, could have played a part in the lack of interest.
Sandals said the program may one day be offered "where numbers warrant it."
Parents will be surveyed again in the new school year to assess future viability of extended day programs. The decision to cut the extended care will not affect the full day junior and senior kindergarten offerings.
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-reprinted from the Guelph Mercury