After so many years of waiting and thousands of dollars per year spent on daycare services, full-time four-year-old kindergarten classes will finally take place at Dr. S.E. McDowell Elementary, in Shawville.

On March 12, the Western Quebec School Board (WQSB) announced that the Ministry of Education will be adding two full-time K4 classes, for the 2019-20 school year.

Funded by the ministry, the addition of two new programs, at Buckingham Elementary and McDowell respectively, will bring the number of schools offering full-time K4 in the WQSB to nine.

Right now, the WQSB only has full-time K4 programs in seven of its schools, including Dr. Wilbert Keon in Chapeau, Queen Elizabeth Elementary in Kazabazua, St. John’s Elementary in Campbell’s Bay and Onslow Elementary in Quyon.

Continuing a decade-long initiative by the ministry to add financed K4 programs in schools across the board, the decision to bring the full-time program to McDowell was made possible because of a shift in the area’s socioeconomic ranking, according to Ruth Ahern, assistant director general for the WQSB.

“Up until this year, McDowell would not have had a socioeconomic disadvantage ranking that would’ve made it eligible,” said Ahern. “It does have the ranking now.”

“Previously McDowell had a six ranking and, at the time, the K4’s were only open to eight, nine and 10 [ranked] schools and its ranking is now nine,” she added. “It makes it eligible.”

Socioeconomic rankings are based on a variety of factors, including parental education levels.

That means parents whose students are eligible will be able to send their child to the K4 programs at McDowell in the Fall of 2019.

The eligibility requirements are:

• The child must be four years old by Oct. 1, 2019.

• Parents must reside at a ministry approved postal code that has a socioeconomic ranking between six and 10.

• The child must have a right to English education.

• The child live within the school boundary.

The new classes are set to follow the same curriculum and program that the ministry has developed for all its full-time K4 classes across the province, with the minimum class size being 6 students while the maximum capacity will be 17, according to Ahern.

According to the WQSB, the program’s purpose is to help prepare children under five years old for the Preschool Education Program, which follows Quebec’s Meeting Early Childhood Needs daycare program.

Its mandate is to give all children equal opportunities, to ensure wholesome development, to instill self-confidence and fulfillment from learning. That’s why schools must take the requisite steps to ensure the mandate is followed.

Information regarding registration timelines, protocols and criteria’s will be made public in the next few weeks, according to a WQSB press release.

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