Unlike previous years, this year the Montreal School Services Center (CSSDM) cannot guarantee that all students will have access to daycare during spring break. Elsewhere in Quebec, parents must look to places other than schools when seeking childcare.
Posted at 5:00 am
In recent years, the CSSDM has brought children together at a neighborhood school to provide day care services during the March holidays.
However, “it was a service that few parents used,” writes Alain Perron, spokesman for the CSSDM. “Participation was around 2% before the pandemic and has continued to decline over the past year due to telecommuting,” he continues.
For this reason, every primary school is currently asking parents to express their interest in sending their child to the spring break daycare center. Only schools with at least 42 enrolled children offer this service. This is the threshold set to allow for “self-financing”.
This is the same process as the other school service centers in the area.
Alain Perron, CSSDM spokesperson
However, at the Pointe-de-l’Île school service center, we are told that the threshold for opening a daycare center in a primary school is set at 30 pupils. However, if it is not achieved, “the schools will join forces to open a day-care center that will welcome students from different schools,” writes their spokeswoman Valérie Biron.
In its decision not to group the children in a neighborhood school, the Montreal School Service Center states that there were “several problems associated with this practice.” We cite in particular “the adaptation of the students to a new environment” and “the ignorance of the children for the educators who welcome the latter from neighboring schools”.
The CSSDM also says the staff shortage is not unrelated to this decision.
Price caps in schools
The fees for school care are capped nationwide. For the spring break, Quebec stipulates that “the asking prices must not exceed the actual costs”.
With the capping of these rates in February 2022, the Ministry of Education assumed that “flexible models with affordable rates for school childcare would promote the compatibility of work and family life”.
Outside of schools, these rates are not capped. The city of Montreal, for example, offers a daycare center for a spring break fee of $150, while other organizations charge up to $270 for a cooking camp. Many are almost full for the week of March.
Dad is looking for a ‘charitable soul’ for spring break
Not only in the Montreal School Service Center is a minimum number of registrations required to be able to offer childcare during the school holidays. Schools across Quebec have already announced such a decision, drawing the ire of some parents.
“Parents still have to get organized,” writes a mother about the decision of a primary school in Saint-Raymond-de-Portneuf not to open a daycare center this year.
In Longueuil, a father launched a Facebook appeal to try and find “a charitable soul” to babysit his child this week.
Spring break in Montreal runs from February 27th to March 3rd. If child day care is not available at school, parents can contact “Community Partners and Leisure Activities”.
Some school service centers have instead opted to hold their spring break starting March 6th.