Parents whose children are attending the Seamless Day Program at Sunshine Hills Elementary in North Delta, say they have been left scrambling to find child care spaces for their kids following notification they can’t participate next year.
The pilot program began on April 1, 2023, and was scheduled to run until June 30, 2024.
The funding for the program came from the Ministry of Education and Child Care. According to the district, it anticipates receiving funding for one more year, which will enable the pilot to run until June 30, 2025.
The program is intended to create a seamless day for kindergarten students by offering before- and after-school care within kindergarten classrooms provided by certified early childhood educators.
Participation in the program is a pay service with the costs to cover the district’s costs for the child care portion of the day only.
The parents recently received a letter from the district that the child care spots for their children would not be available after June 30, 2024. It’s due to their children aging out.
“Our foremost concern lies in the chronic lack of before and after-school childcare programs serving Sunshine Hills Elementary. With the termination of our children’s spots in the Before and After School Care program, we face a distressing reality where 24 children will now be competing for scarce spots in alternative programs. This sudden and significant reduction in available childcare places our families in a state of considerable hardship and uncertainty,” a letter to the district on behalf of the parents reads.
The letter goes on to note there is an apparent discrepancy in the program's eligibility criteria, with the program’s website stating that it is open to students from kindergarten to age 12, but it now appears that only kindergarten students will be prioritized for inclusion, without regard to the disruption to those same kindergarten students the following year.
Parent Candace Basi, who has a son in Grade 1, and currently in the program, told the Optimist they are finding it difficult to find an alternative child care space following the short notice, adding other parents will be left out if the program is not renewed after next year.
“We’ve reached out to all the daycares in the area that support Sunshine Hills, so there’s only two or three, but they’re full and we’re on waitlists…There’s 24 families affected by this. I don’t know if the ministry’s intention was that they’re cutting funding and the district should pick it up, but we were told that Delta as a district is in too much of a deficit to support this program,” she said.
Cathryn Tucker, Director of Communications for the Delta School District, said one of the requirements of the program is that school districts prioritize students entering kindergarten and their siblings. This September, the 24 spaces available at Sunshine Hills will be filled by new students entering kindergarten and a few of their siblings, which means that families with children currently in the pilot program will need to find alternative child care.
“With demand for childcare so high, we recognize that some families are disappointed that their child cannot continue in the Seamless Day Kindergarten program. As a district we understand the pressures within our community on families who need child care and are looking at any viable opportunities. However, with many competing priorities in extremely challenging financial times, this is proving difficult. We are fortunate that we have the space at many of our elementary schools for privately-run, independent childcares to operate,” Tucker noted.
