The 2010-11 Extended Daycare Program  has been canceled throughout the SCDSB with the one exception of the Lions Oval Elementary School in Orillia.

Interest in the Extended Day Program  from families in the eight school attendance areas slated for the new program has been limited.  Families were informed that the EDP would only be offered in 2010-2011 where there was enough interest to allow the board to cover its costs.  As of the end of July 2010, only parents at the Lions Oval Public School in Orillia have  shown sufficient interest.    Please note, the full day ELK program will continue in the currently designated schools. It is only the before-and-after care portion that has been canceled. Four schools will continue to have daycare within the school premises offered by a third party provider:  Admiral Collingwood E.S., Codrington P.S., Hon. Earl Rowe P.S. &  Oakley Park P.S.

All along I have said that the EDP component of the Early Learning Strategy was an expensive program for families and that this piece of the provincial Early Learning package was heavily flawed.

Within Simcoe County the private sector costs approximately $15/day vs. the SCDSB school board at $23.50/day. The school boards EDP prices are based on a full classroom.  When school board prices are significantly higher the service utilization falls and not surprisingly a loss is incurred by the school board. If the SCDSB were to rebalance the price based on lower student sign-up  numbers, the price would be hiked even higher.  It’s a vicious circle.  In the real world if your product is not competitive  you swallow the loss or cut the line; but you decide if you want to produce the product in the first place.  In the current case the Ministry of Education has mandated that Ontario School Boards provide before-and-after care (EDP) and that it be implemented by the 2011-12 school year.   The taxpayer  is the one who will be  paying the bill once more.  Worse still, the students currently enrolled  within the school  system are the feel the losses the hardest, as the money to pay for the program shortfalls will be coming out of the school board’s budgets.

It’s not surprising that the SCDSB has decided to cut all but one of the EDP programs for 2010-11.   Families don’t see the value in paying $25 a day to have before and after day-care at Admiral Collingwood ES or Clearview Meadows ES when they had similar care the year prior for approx. $15/day.

So the good news is we’ve walked away from this boon-doggle in time for this year, the big issue now is what to do next year.   Is the EDP in the schools an optimum solution?  Take a look a the costs detailed in SCDSB Report D-5-g  Appendix A June 23, 2010 below.   Premier Dalton McGuinty clearly wasn’t counting on the private sector being able to make a profit at a whopping 40% discount  to the price school board’s break-even  point.   So maybe its time for the Ministry of Education to rethink this one.

Previous Posts tied to ELP can be found here.

Additional Information:

Price Chart Early Daycare Program

( Before-and-After Care)

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Schools In SCDSB Full-day Early Learning Kindergarten Program 2010-11

• Adjala Central Public School
• Admiral Collingwood Elementary School
• Assikinack Public School
• Baxter Central Public School
• Clearview Meadows Elementary School
• Codrington Public School
• Coldwater Public School
• Hon. Earl Rowe Public School
• Killarney Beach Public School
• Lions Oval Public School*
• Oakley Park Public School
• Port McNicoll Public School
• Sir William Osler Public School
• Sunnybrae Public School
• Warminster Elementary School
• Waubaushene Elementary School

* Also available EDP Early Daycare Program