Full-time kindergarten in Medicine Hat is on the chopping block as a result of overwhelming budget pressures being faced by local school divisions.
Both School District No. 76 and Medicine Hat’s Catholic Separate Regional Division currently offer full-day, every day kindergarten. However, because the province only funds kindergarten on a half-time basis, the program is a major expense for both school boards — costing District No. 76 $800,000 annually and Medicine Hat Catholic $425,000 annually.
In light of provincial cutbacks to education and a recent teachers’ salary arbitration ruling that have put school boards on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars, both boards say these costs are no longer sustainable.
“We believed in the program and support the program, so this certainly is difficult,” says District No. 76 superintendent Grant Henderson. “But with the recent budget announcements, we have to make some decisions that will work for the district.”
Both boards are now surveying parents to find out which option they would prefer — going back to a half-time kindergarten program or retaining the full-time program but requiring parents to pay between $280 to $300 a month.

Another option being considered is to return to the half-day program, but offer child care services at the school for the rest of the day at a cost of $100-$150 a month.
Stacey Wallis, a parent whose daughter Jaida will start kindergarten at George Davison School in the fall, says she is willing to pay for full-time kindergarten if that’s what it takes to keep the program.
“To me, the best place for my daughter is in school with a qualified teacher, under a structured program that they’ve designed for full days,” Wallis says.
Wallis adds that she is a stay-at-home mother who had been planning to go back to work full-time next year. If full-time kindergarten is eliminated, that will no longer be an option.
Christine Weimer of Montessori Preschool says that whatever boards decide, it has the potential to have a huge impact on Medicine Hat’s already over-burdened child care system. One issue is that the fees for daycare and preschool programs — while generally higher than what the school division is proposing to charge for kindergarten — are tax-deductible. Low-income parents can also qualify for a child care subsidy. Kindergarten fees, however, are considered an educational — not child-care — expense, meaning parents won’t be eligible for any kind of tax write-off or subsidy. And if the half-time kindergarten option is chosen, many parents will still have to pay for child care for the remaining 50 per cent of the time.
“As of January, I have 33 children on a waiting list,” Weimer says. “I don’t think I’ll be able to house them, because a lot of parents have expressed that if kindergarten goes to half-time, they’re just going to leave their kids here for another year and start them in the school system in Grade 1.”
District No. 76 was a pioneer among Alberta school boards when it implemented the full-day everyday kindergarten program in 2004, and the majority of school boards still do not offer the program today. However, Henderson says his division still believes that providing those extra instructional hours to kids when they’re young pays off in the end.
“It was meant to enhance their education at the start of the early years, to have that magnified benefit in the long-term,” he says.
Medicine Hat Catholic began offering full-time kindergarten in 2006, but superintendent David Leahy says they only did it because District No. 76 led the way.
“We wouldn’t have gone that way, simply because of the expense,” Leahy says. “But the truth is, we were starting to lose kids to District No. 76.”
While Leahy says the Catholic board has been happy with the program because it solves parents’ child care concerns, he’s not sure it provides the educational value many people thought it would. He adds there is no additional material in the full-day curriculum — the program just stretches the curriculum over a longer period of time.
“The research has shown, unfortunately, that the impact educationally that one might hope would happen hasn’t happened,” Leahy says.
Both boards expect to make a decision by late March or early April.