by Helen Hall
   About 75 people braved a cold and windy night to protest at Driftwood Public School before the first of six roundtable meetings about child care changes being introduced by the public school board.
   The final roundtable will he held tonight (February 2) between 7pm and 8:30 at Sir Adam Beck Public School in Baden. You must be registered with the school board to attend the meeting.
   The Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) has proposed to take over child care for children between the ages of four and seven in its buildings. This means that third-party providers, such as Owl Child Care or the YMCA, who currently provide this service in WRDSB schools will have their programs replaced with board-run programs.
   The school board hopes that by taking over the care of four to seven year olds, it can offer it in more schools than it is currently provided. This will give more students access to what is called a “seamless” day, where there are less transitions for the students between 7am and 6pm.
   This proposal has caused an uproar with parents who will see their fees increase, and who are also unsure about how these changes will affect the location of programs and summertime care.
   Ashley Ross of Cambridge is a mother of two toddlers. She attended the Driftwood meeting because the school where her children have day care, Ryerson Public in Cambridge, will be one of the first affected by the changes in September 2012.
   She currently pays about $27,000 a year for her two toddlers who will remain with the YMCA, because the school board is only taking over care for four to seven year olds. However, she has been told her rates will also increase up to 30 percent as the YMCA will have to make up the money it is losing by the board taking over the care of the older children.
   “Can I justify working when I am the secondary income earner and the rates are this high?” Ross said in an interview.
She said she is concerned about how it will affect the number of toddlers at Ryerson because the rate increases may force parents to move their children to unlicensed or private day care. If the numbers go down, the YMCA may cancel its toddler program altogether at the school.
   Ross said the mood was intense at the Driftwood meeting. The media were not allowed in the room but people were observed still arguing about the issue with school board officials after the roundtable meeting had ended.
   The original schedule set up by Penny Milton, a facilitator hired by the board, was that the parents would answer some questions from the board on topics like what they find important to have in a child care program.
   “Someone said ‘This is garbage. We don’t want to answer your questions. We want you to answer our questions,’’ Ross recalled.
Milton changed the format of the meeting to have the parents submit questions to the school board representatives, which included the board’s executive superintendent Mary Lou Mackie and chair of the school board trustees Catherine Fife.
   Ross said the board didn’t have firm answers to many of the questions about cost, location, special needs children and summertime care.
   “There was very little real tangible information they could give us,” she said, which made those in the room become more upset.
Ross said that, while she appreciated the change in the format of the meeting to respond to the parents’ questions, what she learned is parents should have been consulted before these changes were proposed - rather than the board trying to answer their questions   afterwards.
   “It was such poor planning,” Ross said of the way the board has handled the child care issue.
   Ross said parents go through a long process to choose a child care provider.
   “They are taking care of your most important possession,” she said.
   Ross believes the board is “arrogant” to think that they can just come in and make this kind of change without consulting with parents first.
   And while some parents may be okay with the board taking over child care for four to seven year olds, she feels the board did not do enough research on how it would affect the third-party toddler programs in the schools.
   The board had originally suggested that daily fees for four to seven year olds would increase from $17 per day to $26. However, trustees have decided to re-examine this daily cost after the roundtable meetings are complete.
   The public board first announced these changes in the fall.
   While the Ministry of Education is promoting extended child care programs before and after school for four to seven year olds, it does not require they be provided by school boards. The Waterloo Region District School Board is believed to be the only board in the province that is replacing its third-party providers for four to seven year olds and exclusively running its own programs.
  After the roundtable meeting, the facilitator, Milton, defended the local board’s plan to replace third-party providers.
  She said that all major changes in education come from one board that is willing to “step up” and take another route.
  Parents who are concerned about the impacts of the public school board’s plan have set up a website at www.wrdsbdaycare.com with information about their concerns about the changes.