Sherwood Park Preschool

We have 2 spots available in our multi-age room (aged 18-30 months) starting now!

If you are looking for care in a beautiful center with loving, caring staff contact Elaine or Tania at [email protected]

Happy St.Patrick’s day from Sherwood Park! ☘️💚😋

Dear Sherwood Park Families,

Many of you are likely aware of the announcement that was made on Friday, January 14th, about reduced child care fees. The announcement informed the public about an immediate 25% reduction in fees to be provided to families as a retroactive payment after April 1st, 2022. At this time we have no further information about this reduction, but will share with you any information that we receive. This reduction will only be available to families at Sherwood park Preschool if we sign an agreement to join the Nova Scotia- Canada Wide Early Learning Child Care System.

What is the Nova Scotia-Canada Wide Early Learning Child Care System?

An agreement (called the Canada Wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement) was signed between the Federal government and Nova Scotia to receive funding to reduce child care costs for families, moving towards $10 per day child care fees over the next 4 years. This is a a wonderful use of our tax dollars, and will significantly reduce the financial burden on all families.

Increasing the publicly funded support for child care in Nova Scotia to make it affordable for families, while not jeopardizing quality, is a great thing and we fully support that concept. What is unfortunate is that the people who own approximately 195 licensed child care centres in the province, who are mainly women, are being asked to make a decision that significantly impacts their careers, their job security and financial stability, and their future prospects for retirement, without enough information. Privately owned licensed child care centres were presented with options for joining the new system with very little detail about the financial and operational implications of each option. And while the options bring with them potential opportunities, there are also foreseeable risks that need to be considered.

Our family moved to the Rockingham community in 2015. We purchased our home and the child care facility that was operating in it at that time. The previous owners wanted to find someone who would make sure the daycare remained. Sherwood park preschool has been operating in this community for over 40 years, and in fact our currentneighbour was the founder and original owner. During the 7 years we have been here we have seen the transition to pre-primary, and responded by adjusting our program to welcome more toddler aged children. We have celebrated the career growth of two of our Early Childhood Educators who both worked as teachers, Directors, and then went on to own their own child care centre, taking a positive step forward for their future careers. We sincerely want to see a quality child care program continue at Sherwood park Preschool, at a reduced cost to families, and we want to see security for our staff.

We are in a slightly different position from many other privately owned child care centres because we act as owners but do not work in the capacity of an Executive Director. Child care is not our primary career, rather we work as an employee of Sherwood Park Preschool to provide administrative services to cover bookkeeping, payroll, accounts payable/receivable, and other business related functions. Beyond that we act more in a supportive capacity providing oversight or consultation where needed, much as a board of directors would in a not-for profit centre. We rely on the expertise of our Director and Early Childhood Educators to run a quality childcare program.

So while we may not be concerned about our personal job security, we are concerned about the future feasibility of maintaining critical administrative and overhead costs without ANY information about what the “new provincial funding model” will look like. We are concerned about the job security for our staff, what the impacts will be (positive or negative) on their current employee benefits, and the scope of practice and autonomy that will be allowed to our Director under a “new central organization”. We have been told that the newly proposed central organization will be taking over some administrative functions “to allow directors and pedagogical leaders to get back to the important work that they were trained to do including working with children and mentoring educators”. And while a relief in some administrative functions may be welcomed, and allocating more time to staff mentorship will only add to quality child care, we have not been provided ANY information about how our employees’ positions will be reclassified and compensated under a “new compensation and benefit framework”.

The government has asked all privately owned licensed child care operators to choose one of the presented options to join the NS-Canada Wide Early Learning Child Care System by March 18, 2022. They have not provided enough information about critical aspects of that system on which to base an informed decision. We have been advised to consult with lawyers and accountants about the best option for our individual situation without enough information for those professionals to formulate appropriately informed advice. At this time private owners are approaching the government in solidarity to ask for more information and, for many, an opportunity to negotiate what fair compensation for their life’s work would look like. If this does not happen, we will support the other privately owned centres in moving forward to take next steps together. At this point we do not know exactly what that might look like, and will let you know when we have a clearer idea of what those next steps might be.

We are happy to answer any questions about the information we have received, and can discuss it at the upcoming parent meeting. We will keep you informed in the coming weeks/months as this situation evolves. We ask for your support and you patience as we work through this change.

What can you do?
• We ask for your support of the child care sector, a primarily female dominated profession, and of women-owned business.
• Write to the MLAs (contact below) to express your concern for the lack of information that has been provided to licensed child care centres about the options they are being presented with and about how the current plan devalues the hard work that many Nova Scotian women and families have put in to build the child care sector.
• Share posts on social media about the real life stories and the impacts these options will have on child care owners.
Sincere thanks for taking the time to read and consider the threatened position so many entrepreneurs feel they have been placed in this week.

Kind regards,
Heather & Uchenna Ezurike