On Jan. 15, the board of trustees for the School District of Mystery Lake (SDML) used their first meeting of 2019 to reiterate that they will not be providing full-day kindergarten in the next school year.
Throughout Tuesday’s meeting, both co-superintendent Lorie Henderson and board chairperson Don Macdonald mentioned that the cost of providing this service is exceeding the district’s revenue, which means they can only budget for half-day kindergarten instead.
While the board will decide the ultimate fate of full-day kindergarten programs during their upcoming 2019-2020 budget consultations, representatives from École Riverside School attended this meeting to ask them to reconsider their position.
As a member of the school’s parent council, Amanda Smook said she’s witnessed the benefits of full-day kindergarten take root with their students over the last five or so years it’s been available.
Not only are the kids who’ve been through this program better-behaved, but Smook said the extra attention and hands-on care they’ve received from early childhood educators has increased their language fluency and critical thinking skills in the long run.
“One of the Mystery Lake school division’s strategic priorities is to increase critical literacy and numeracy achievement through the development of comprehension, communication and problem-solving skills,” she said. “Getting those little guys into school and spending that time learning to build those skills is going to help achieve that.”
Smook also said Riverside is at a unique disadvantage if this option is eliminated, since it is the only SDML elementary school that offers full-day kindergarten in French immersion.
“We stand to lose children to DSFM if we get cut to half-day,” she said, referencing the rival Division Scolaire Franco-Manitobaine. “Even if we only see five children move to La Voie Du Nord, we’re looking at about half-a-million dollars gone from the district by the time they graduate high school.”
Smook closed her presentation by asking the trustees why “financial cuts always affect the time that gets spent with our children?” especially when this extra attention has a provably positive impact on the students’ overall development.
“I’m here tonight to ask you to please consider the importance of more than just the curriculum and the dollars, and remind you that good early years educators are focused on developing the whole child and not just their test scores.”
While trustee Leslie Tucker admitted that keeping full-day kindergarten is probably in the children’s best interests, she told Smook that it’s not a realistic option given the current state of their finances.
“We really struggle with the balancing of budgets and children’s needs. So I certainly support you in theory and I really appreciate that you came here and made a presentation,” said Tucker. “I just wish that we could just stand and say ‘Yeah, something could be done,’ but I’m not sure that that can be done.”
The next SDML board of trustees meeting is scheduled for Jan. 29 at the district office on Thompson Drive.
