Michelle Dorey Forestell, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Kingstonist.com

As the old adage “It takes a village to raise a child” suggests, it requires a community to provide a safe, healthy, secure environment for children to develop and flourish.

In addition to friends and family, citizens count on their elected municipal, provincial, and federal governments to create laws and policies to keep children safe, healthy, and flourishing. One of the ways the Ministry of Education attempts to do this is by mandating that school boards offer before- and after-school care (BASC) programs for their students in junior kindergarten (JK) through Grade 6 where there is “sufficient demand from parents and families and the program is viable.” 

But one local mom says that mandate is not being followed up on.

Lia De Pauw’s youngest child, aged four, just started JK in September 2024 at a school in the Limestone District School Board. De Pauw is a solo mom who works full time, so she would require BASC for him and his 10-year-old brother. In June when she registered her son for JK and signed up for a registered BASC program at the school, she was told he was 70th on the waiting list to get in. Since then, De Pauw has been rudely awakened to the crisis in child care and has been digging into what is being done to solve it.

After finding out about the long waiting list for school-based BASC, De Pauw tried to get her four-year-old into BASC programming at the West End Boys and Girls Club (BGC): “It’s the only other option of centre-based child care at my children’s school; there’s a wait list of 100 kindergarten-aged children there.”

De Pauw said BGC told her in August that her child was the next in line if a space opened. However, she later learned that other children were given the spots that opened. “There seems to be a lot of confusion within BGC about its policies and processes. The [BASC] system seems to have grown too fast,” De Pauw speculated.

The fact is that in accordance with section 2 of O. Reg. 221/11 of the Education Act, school boards are required to ensure the provision of BASC programs for every elementary school serving students in the primary and/or junior division (for example, from kindergarten to Grade 6) where there is sufficient demand and/or viability. Programs must be available on every instructional school day.

Therefore, according to government policy, Limestone and other boards of education have a duty to provide BASC. They can do this in-house or contract it out to a third-party provider, but the programs must be available if there “is demand and viability.”

Both local English school boards, Limestone District School Board (LDSB) and Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board (ALCDSB), have opted to contract out these programs. However, De Pauw has discovered an enormous gap in the spaces available for high-quality before- and after-school care for children aged three to six and a smaller gap for ages seven to 12.

First, she asked other parents what they were doing and found that some were also struggling with no care. One family at the school her children attend had two children in the school-based child care program for years, but even they were told there would not be space for their youngest child when they started JK this year.

To understand just how many people are in similar situations, De Pauw made a request through Ontario’s Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (MFIPPA), which gives individuals the right to access data under the control of a local government institution — in this case, the City of Kingston. 

A short time later, Blair Johnson, the City of Kingston’s Corporate Records and Information Manager, answered her inquiries. He wrote that there are zero vacancies anywhere in the City of Kingston for children three to five years old, and 413 children are on waiting lists for care, though some of those are waiting for full-day daycare. 

The situation for children age six to 12 is a little better: 310 children were waitlisted for BASC in 2024, and 127 spots were open in September. However, this all gets a bit complicated based on school, care centre location, busing, and several other factors.

Further, Johnson said he had contacted the City’s Housing and Social Services Department staff to inquire about the requirements for school-based child care providers to open additional spaces if there are enough interested families in the school. 

Johnson wrote, “There are no requirements for school-based childcare providers to open additional spaces in a school regardless of the number of interested families. Additionally, school-based Before and After School Programs operate in a specific school at the discretion of the school/school board.” The school boards have been contracting this work out to third-party providers.

“Should a school, or school board, be interested in providing space to a Before and After School Program,” he explained, “ the school (generally) surveys families to establish interest… Often, the school board will request that the City of Kingston’s Childcare and Early Years Services (CEYS), as the Consolidated Municipal Service Manager [CMSM], assist them by setting up the survey and collating the results. Please note that this relationship is informal and, although encouraged, is not a Ministry of Education requirement for school boards or CMSMs.” 

This answer doesn’t align with the Ministry of Education’s policy, which states nothing about “informal” relationships. Instead, the Ministry policy states, “As part of their planning process, school boards are required to consult with their local child care service system manager… to assess if there is sufficient demand.” 

Kingston’s Childcare & Early Years Services Housing and Social Services Department at 362 Montreal Street, Kingston, is the Ontario designated Service System Manager for: 

• City of Kingston
• County of Frontenac
• Township of Central Frontenac
• Township of Frontenac Islands
• Township of North Frontenac
• Township of South Frontenac

Furthermore, Section 51 of Ontario’s Child Care and Early Years Act states, “Each service system manager shall have a child care and early years programs and services plan for its service area.” According to the ministry, the service system manager and school boards “have a duty to cooperate” to implement the plan. The plan must comply with any procedural requirements prescribed by the regulations, including requirements relating to the frequency with which it must be developed, reviewed, updated, or approved.

It stands to reason, given the long waiting lists De Pauw and her friends have faced, that there is “sufficient demand,” and CEYS’ own data suggests so as well.

De Pauw discovered that it is hard to tell whether or not the school boards and CEYS understand their mandates for BASC or are taking their duties seriously to cooperate and create a strategy to fix the serious lack of availability. Other system managers who should be working with LDSB and ALCDSB include Hastings County Children’s Services and Prince Edward Lennox & Addington Social Services Children’s Services Division.

This duty to cooperate with each other and the school boards’ duty to provide care don’t seem well known at the board level, either. Both De Pauw and Kingstonist discovered a lack of understanding regarding the provisions of the Education Act.

In response to Kingstonist inquiries, Manager of Strategic Communications for ALCDSB Jessica Salmon stated, “The ALCDSB does not provide before and after care — this is done through third parties.” Salmon couldn’t comment on the number of children on waiting lists, saying, “We don’t oversee the waitlists; the third parties do.”

“We do provide space for before/after school activities in our schools,” Salmon noted. “For example, our newest school, St. Genevieve Catholic School in Kingston, opened in September and was constructed with four new childcare rooms, providing 73 licensed childcare spaces. The provider there is the Boys and Girls Club.”

“In addition, we are… building new schools in Picton, Belleville, Amherstview, and Napanee — all with more licensed childcare space. The new Amherstview school will have three childcare rooms and 49 licensed spaces. So we’re doing what we can!” she concluded. 

So while ALCDSB is working on providing space, the board doesn’t acknowledge that its job is also ensuring  that there is available programming in those spaces.

Limestone representative Jane Douglas-Charanduk wrote in response to the same query, “The Limestone District School Board understands the challenges families are facing regarding access to childcare, including Before and After School Programs (BASP) for children in JK-Grade 6.  LDSB provides space in schools to third party childcare providers, who provide childcare services in our schools.  Space accommodation in LDSB schools is rarely the issue. Our understanding is that the current childcare waitlist is due to staffing shortages, rather than a lack of available space.”

It continues, “Historically, school space has not been the limiting factor in Limestone. We work diligently to find available space where there is a need, and we actively support partnerships with providers who can deliver these services. Our relationships with local BASC providers remain strong, and we continue to welcome and support these programs to the best of our ability, given the current circumstances.”

“We recognize the difficulty these waitlists pose for families and are committed to working with our partners to support quality childcare where possible.”

All of this avoids the fact that the onus lies on the boards; it is their duty to provide care. Again, they may contract it out to a third party provider, but it is the duty of the school board to make sure it happens if there is a demand.

Each service system manager must have a child care and early years programs and services plan for its service area, and school boards “have a duty to cooperate” with implementing the plan. In the last ten years, some of these responsibilities have been neglected or outright forgotten.

For her part, De Pauw has been actively bringing this to the attention of LDSB through emails and conversations with both Early Years and Equity & Inclusion Superintendent Alison McDonnell and Director of Education Krishna Burra, as well as emailing all of the board trustees.

She hopes to remind them of their duty to provide much-needed child care spaces; she even suggests possible solutions to get the ball rolling, saying, “I think Limestone needs to reassess its approach of using third-party providers to meet its obligations of providing both extended full-day kindergarten and BASC. The third-party providers are unable to meet the demand level for extended full-day kindergarten services.” 

De Pauw noted that one idea means admitting mistakes have been made along the way. “The initial plan for full-day kindergarten was that the school boards would contract early childhood educators [ECEs] to provide before and after care, as well as working alongside teachers in the classroom. This plan ensures that your youngest learners have safe and high-quality childcare that supports their mental well-being during a challenging transition period, provides Limestone ECEs (and EAs [educational assistants]) with additional hours of work and income without getting second or third jobs elsewhere (a point of contention in the last contract negotiations), and enables parents to contribute to the economy and meet your student’s basic needs.”

In the end, she hopes they will treat this as an urgent issue for students’ health, well-being, and learning because “families without before and after care cannot work, which impacts their ability to meet their students’ basic needs for housing, food, and clothing.”

In the Limestone statement above, they note, “Our understanding is that the current childcare waitlist is due to staffing shortages, rather than a lack of available space.” There is a shortage of ECEs and other childcare providers. It is difficult for the daycare sector to retain staff, and low pay rates often make the positions unappealing as a long-term career.  In fact, many of those who used to work in daycares took jobs at school boards because of the better pay available for ECEs who work in kindergarten classes.

However, Limestone fails to acknowledge that it is their duty under the Education Act to do something about it and not just hope the third-party BASC providers sort it out on their own. De Pauw sees herself, the other parents, and especially the kids, as casualties in a vicious circle of passing the buck.

Luckily for De Pauw and her children, they live less than a kilometre from her workplace and the school, and she has an empathetic employer. “I’ve mainly been biking the kids to school, as I can get between the locations faster than with a car. The kids have often been scooting or skateboarding in the morning and I’m taking their helmets to work,” she explained.

“I’ve been able to shorten my lunch to a half hour and have a family-status accommodation to pick up my son at 3:25 and work from home for the final hour of my day while a newcomer friend babysits him.” She says her friend doesn’t speak much English, sometimes making communicating with a four-year-old tough, but “that’s workable with me at home.” 

De Pauw has put a lot of energy into getting BASC for her son. “Aside from getting on to every wait list possible… I learned a lot about the child care system and system-wide issues.” After making the Freedom of Information (FOI) request in June, besides writing to Director Burra and Limestone trustees, she has written to the ministers of Education, Community and Social Services, and Women’s Social and Economic Opportunity, as well as to MPPs, opposition critics, and key advocates such as People for Public Education and columnist Armine Yalmizyan. She has also reached out to Kingstonist and other media.

Now she has FOI requests in with the City to understand how many actual spaces are available in each school and with LDSB to understand what steps they have taken to assess whether they are meeting the level of demand for childcare in their schools and to investigate alternative models.

 “I’m exhausted, stretched, and stressed,” she says, “between trying to manage as a sole parent without a licensed before- and after-school program and trying to get those who have the responsibility and capacity to solve the crisis in school-aged care to work on solving it,” she said.

“I suspect it’s been quite helpful that I have a background in advocacy, health and public policy, and system planning and system change processes,” she said. But not every parent has the skills to advocate for something this important — and she is just one parent out of hundreds in the area experiencing these challenges. It seems to be time for the boards — who have a central role in the child-raising “village” — to step up and do their part.

De Pauw does seem to have some glimmers of hope: “The Superintendent of Early Years and my principal have been most helpful. Director of Education Krishna Burra acknowledged the problem. Still, he was very resistant to acknowledging that it’s his problem to solve (according to legislation) and that he can’t solve it through third-party providers. These providers do not have the capacity to recruit enough qualified staff for part-time, split-shift work to meet the demands.” 

De Pauw said that the Superintendent of Early Years, Alison McDonnell, has “been very willing to acknowledge the scale of the child care crisis and the steps Limestone can take to help address the issue. She said she would connect through her position with municipal childcare system managers and Ministry of Education staff responsible for early years and child care. She was interested in learning how other school boards provide these services.”

While acknowledging that “any evaluation and program assessment processes will take time and are unlikely to result in change for my family,” De Pauw hopes her advocacy will be joined by other voices, to help keep the pressure on the “village” leaders to fulfill their duty to the youngest community members.

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