Province blasted for after-school care limits

School boards, which are required to offer programs, contract to recreation providers

Ontario vows to help community-based after-school programs comply with new regulations after parents in Toronto’s child-care-starved east end say government rules are leaving them in the lurch.

The ongoing child-care crunch in the area bubbled to a boil this week after a popular Leslieville program offering classes in dance, art, science and technology, and martial arts was deemed to be operating an illegal child care because some of the children were 4 and 5.

If the program wanted to continue, unlicensed, it had to limit children’s participation to three days a week.

“Who works three days a week?” said parent Mark Fraser. His daughter, 7, is among almost 100 kids in the program. About half are picked up from area schools five days a week.

On Wednesday, after enraged parents signed an online petition and flooded social media with complaints, Indira Naidoo-Harris, minister responsible for child care, sent ministry officials to Sprouts Growing Bodies and Minds on Carlaw Ave. to work out a solution.

“If someone is not compliant and isn’t completely aware of all of the rules and needs some assistance and support, we’re going there and helping them,” she said.

The regulations are part of child-care legislation introduced in 2014 in response to a scathing ombudsman’s report after a rash of deaths in unlicensed home daycares, including Eva Ravikovich who died after she was left in a hot car.

In addition to beefed-up inspections and new rules for home daycares, the law mandated that school boards provide before- and after-school programs for families that request it, starting with fullday kindergarten in the fall of 2016 and extending to students from Grades 1 to 6 in September 2017.

School boards, such as the Toronto public and Catholic boards that don’t provide the programs themselves, are allowed to contract with licensed child-care providers or authorized recreation programs.

After-school programs for 4- and 5year-olds not run by the school board can be operated only by licensed daycares. And that is where recreation programs such as Sprouts are running into problems with education ministry inspectors, Naidoo-Harris said.

Since September, the ministry has issued 10 compliance orders. All are in the GTA, including four in Toronto’s east end.

Sprouts co-owner Emily Pengelly said most kindergarten-age children come to her classes with nannies or parents who remain on site. The few 4- and 5-yearolds who attend five days a week on their own have older siblings, she said.

“We are not here to babysit. It’s not what we do. We are teachers. And if a child isn’t ready to learn or isn’t interested in what we offer, then they shouldn’t be here,” she said in an interview.