Co-op preschool could see big rent jump
Strawberry Vale Preschool parents filled most of the public seats at a Greater Victoria school board meeting to show their concern over the possibility of a big jump in rent.
“It’s been an ongoing issue for a while,” said Angie Hentze, a preschool parent and vice-president of the facility’s board.
She said the proposed increase would put the rental rate up to $1,400 a month. Notification of the increase was received in March 2017.
“When we first started in 1994, we were paying $1 a year,” Hentze said in a presentation to the board.
“This went up to our current, admittedly low, rent of $230 a month.”
Tuition could rise 12 per cent in the first year with the rent increase, she said.
Since the beginning, the society that operates the preschool has also been overseeing its own maintenance, Hentze said.
She added that they have raised and spent $75,000 on capital projects for the building.
The preschool, which serves 34 children, is in a historic 1893 building, known as “the Little Red Schoolhouse,” that was first used as a preschool in 1951.
Hentze said the preschool is run in a unique fashion. “We are a co-op, we are non-profit. All of the [staff] are parent volunteers with the exception of our teachers.
“We need a fair agreement that’s going to take into account our contributions to our staff, our building, our district and our community, and we need a long-term commitment that’s going to honour our history.”
Preschool board president Kim Guiry issued a request to district trustees to put off the signing deadline for a rental agreement to Sept. 30, after there has been further consultation.
“We’re are hopeful that by December we can have an agreement in place.”
Greater Victoria school district secretarytreasurer Mark Walsh said the goal is to standardize rental rates for child-care facilities across the jurisdiction. The process began with the school board asking staff to consult with childcare providers before any rent increases were brought in.
“The message was equity needs to be there,” Walsh said.
Child-care providers met and realized there was considerable disparity in what was being paid for rent, he said, with Strawberry Vale’s rate among the lowest. “We didn’t have a standard across the district.”
The result was creation of a per-student rental rate, Walsh said.
He said Strawberry Vale Preschool hasn’t been alone in taking care of its own maintenance. “A number of our providers have been doing very similar things.”