Full-day kindergarten is coming to the Sooke School District next year, but how it will be funded and which schools will be affected remains a mystery.

In September 2010, some elementary schools in SD 62 will start full-day kindergarten. The Ministry of Education has mandated all elementaries will have the program by 2011, said superintendent Jim Cambridge.

“Whether it’s all schools (next year) or a couple we’re not sure. It’s not our decision,” Cambridge said. “We’ve heard through the grapevine that we’ll know before Christmas.”

The sooner the district knows the better, Cambridge said — parents register their tots for kindergarten in February and there are plenty of logistics to work out. “Parents are certainly concerned on issues around universal access or if it’s just certain schools,” Cambridge said. “We’ll want to know as soon as possible.”

This year the district has 600 kindergarten kids attending, all part time. If the government opts for all schools going full time in September, the district will need to find double the space. They also don’t want to push out existing pre-school or after-school programs, Cambridge said.

Of the 18 elementary schools in the district, three would have trouble finding room and would likely need portables or to shuffle a K class into a multipurpose room, for instance.

Ruth King elementary kindergarten teacher Shannon Hjermstad said she’s looking forward to full-day K, as long as the Ministry of Education does its homework.

“You can’t just make it a longer day. You’ve got to rethink the curriculum, but not turn it into Grade 1,” Hjermstad said. “We have to think about using the time wisely, we’ve got to look at other models.”

The district’s $91-million project to build two new high schools on the West Shore factors into the full-day K puzzle. New schools would allow the district to reconfigure its grades, with Grade 6 shifting to middle school and Grade 9 to high school to bring the grades in line with other school districts.

“It all comes down to Belmont, Belmont, Belmont,” said Bob Phillips, board of education vice-chair. “If you find funding for secondary schools and pull all the Grade 6s out (of elementary schools), you’ll have a lot of space.”

Given a choice, Phillips said the board would prefer to have all schools move to all-day K rather than half now, half later. “We wouldn’t want to pick which schools,” he said.

Phillips said it remains unclear if and how the government would supplement district budgets for full-day K. Kindergarten students would qualify for full-time funding, but K classes tend to need more resources — games, toys, tables, paints and small libraries.

“Kindergarten materials are relatively expensive because of their specialized nature,” Phillips said. “We could end up with extra capital costs.”

The Ministry of Education said it would add $44 million in 2010 and $107 million in 2011-12 to the provincial education budget for a phased in approach. With initiatives such as StrongStart and all-day K, the province says it wants to expand its early learning programs.

“Our position is that (all-day kindergarten) a good thing as long as it’s well resourced,” Cambridge said.

“The research says some kids would benefit greatly from all-day kindergarten, especially those with learning problems,” Phillips said. “For some kids it makes a lot of sense.”

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