EXCERPTS
Child-care centre RisingOaks Early Learning will be signing up for the national $10-a-day child-care initiative.
Lori Prospero, chief executive officer of RisingOaks Early Learning, formerly known as Owl Child Care Services, said the child-care operator is in the midst of completing paperwork needed to meet guidelines set by the provincial government and the Region of Waterloo.
“I think this is the best move for our system. We are definitely opting in,” Prospero said in an interview this week.
The province opened up the application process on June 30 and daycare operators have until Sept. 1 to sign on to the multi-year agreement which will cut child-care fees to $10 a day by September 2025.
The deal, finalized in the spring between the federal and provincial governments, also has Ontario creating an additional 86,000 child-care spaces.
Bethany Wagler-Mantle, a children’s services manager with the Region of Waterloo, said fees will be reduced for parents by 25 per cent this year, by 50 per cent in 2023 and again in 2024 until child-care fees are $10 a day in 2025.
Wagler-Mantle said parents should start to see retroactive payments by the end of the summer.
About 14,000 children are in child care that is overseen by the region. There are 8,000 spaces for children, ranging from newborns to five-year-olds run by independent operators.
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