Families in Vancouver looking for out-of-school care face years-long waitlists and stressful daily scrambles, according to a trustee who is hoping the board will take the first step towards a “big solution” at next week’s meeting. Jennifer Reddy, with OneCity, describes the current situation as a crisis and is arguing the Vancouver School Board has a “moral imperative” and the infrastructure to address it. The motion she is bringing to the April 20 meeting is admittedly modest. It asks for the board to allocate $50,000 to conduct a feasibility study for a pilot program that would see licensed child-care spaces set up at multiple schools, staffed wherever possible by existing board employees. But the move comes after years of hearing from parents, mostly moms, about the heavy toll the struggle of trying to find safe, reliable and consistent child care is taking. “What I keep hearing about over and over again is just how impossible it is to get your kid in care, right off the cuff in kindergarten. On top of that, because they’re not able to get the space, they’re actually scrambling just trying to make ends meet,” Reddy told CTV News, adding she hears stories of working moms curtailing their careers, reducing their hours, skipping all their breaks, and spending untold hours crafting ad-hoc arrangements that can change from one day to the next. “It’s such deep distress trying to deal with it,” Reddy added. “How have we not figured this out? And honestly, I think it’s so gendered that we just brush it under the rug.” Last year, the province amended the Education Act in order to “remove barriers” to districts providing childcare on school grounds in order to increase the number of spaces available across B.C. allowing schools to access funding, enabling them to offer care to infants and toddlers, and making it possible for childcare to be delivered on non-school days are among the changes. Reddy is hopeful this recently changed context sends a signal to the board that child care can and should be seen as part of its mandate. “It’s really trying to leverage our public-school infrastructure for the same kids that we’re already serving,” she explained. “I’m just really looking for that initial step the board can take in order to show political will, the willingness to take initiative on solving an issue that we have a key to providing a solution for.” Part of the feasibility study Reddy is pitching is a survey that would yield district-wide data on demand, and a better sense of how many spaces would be needed to meet the needs of families. ‘Game changer’ Sambriddhi Nepal is one Vancouver mom rallying behind Reddy’s motion. Her seven-year-old daughter has been on a waitlist for one of the coveted spots in her school’s on-site child-care program since the day she started kindergarten. “It’s just, it’s very stressful,” Nepal told CTV News. Still, she said she counts her family as lucky given what she knows about the state of childcare in the city. Nepal’s daughter has a spot in a Boys and Girls Club after school, Nepal’s job is relatively flexible. “I’m thinking a lot of people who are in positions where they don’t have the luxury of time to be able to be on a lunch time making phone calls, begging people to let their kid into a service,” Nepal told CTV News. “I’m thinking of parents who don’t have that option because they work shift, or they just don’t have the luxury of support, or they can’t just ring someone to say, ‘Can you please help?’” But even for her, having the kind of option Reddy is pitching would be a “game-changer.” One of the small but daily stressors of her daughter’s situation is that the move from school to another site involves crossing a very busy street. Another issue is that the Boys and Girls Club doesn’t guarantee a spot through spring break or other holidays. The relief that consistent school-based care would bring is something she thinks is almost impossible to quantify when trying to decide whether investing in the option is worthwhile. “I understand how budgets work. But I think we have to think really carefully about what the societal cost is of having a large group of people, children, who are not able to be in reliable, secure care; and what it means for a very large number of people in society, parents, who are making very difficult decisions,” she said “It’s just the right thing to do.”
