School District 71 could potentially offer all-day kindergarten in nine schools next year.

Mary-Ann McCrea, the district’s director of instruction, student services, provided an initial look to trustees last week at how all-day kindergarten could work in the district.

The district must submit an implementation plan to the Ministry of Education by Nov. 1.

The ministry has provided guidelines listing reaching vulnerable students, using available space, not displacing existing programs and preserving current full-day programming as priorities, explained McCrea.

The government is aiming for half of the kindergarten children in the province having access to this service next school year but not necessarily half of the students in every district, she noted.

“Some districts are just incapable of offering this; they do not have any space,” she said. “Some districts may offer full-day kindergarten in all their schools. I’m not sure that’s what we would want to do next year because we would be up against some space issues in a few places.”

School District 71 has space to offer all-day kindergarten next year at Queenesh Elementary School, Courtenay Elementary School and École Puntledge Park Elementary, noted McCrea.

Miracle Beach Elementary School, Airport Elementary, Aspen Park Elementary and Royston Elementary also have space, and McCrea felt all-day kindergarten could be offered at the Hornby Island and Denman Island schools, as the few students could be rolled into the kindergarten-Grade 1 classes, she explained.

“That would be the recommendation right now that we offer it in these nine schools, including the two islands,” said McCrea. “We would have equipment, and potentially staffing wouldn’t be problematic. It wouldn’t disrupt any existing services ... Any day cares that are attached to schools right now wouldn’t be impacted by this.”

Many questions still need to be answered, such as whether there would be one teacher per class or two, and if there would be a minimum number of students and what that number would be, explained McCrea.

This plan is the very initial stages of implementation, emphasized superintendent Jordan Tinney.

“It just indicates to the ministry this is what we think could work,” he said.

Having gone through dual-entry kindergarten, trustee Janice Caton felt the district should proceed with caution.

“I think it’s a good idea, and the intentions are right,” she said. “The fact they are implementing only 50 per cent is a red flag for me.”

Trustee Fran Goldberg felt beginning with nine schools may be too much given the complexity of the issues, and she also suggested delaying the Nov. 1 draft until after the board has made its decision on grade structure.

writer@comoxvalleyrecord.com