Parents left scrambling for child care after staffing challenges force Vancouver preschool's imminent closure

Some parents in Vancouver's West End say they're upset after being informed that their local preschool will be shutting down next month, anothersign that facilities across British Columbia are struggling with a shortfall in qualified staff.

Little Sprout Preschool, which is run by theWest End Community Centre Association, sent a letter to parents earlier this monthsaying it was shutting down the program in December due to "staffing challenges and enrolmentissues."

Parents like Denise Ting, whose three-year-old son attends the school, says there was no consultation with parents about the decision, or even a warning.

"Instead of just closing it down, you can talk to us. There was no sit-down conversationwith the parents on how to solve the problem together," said Ting.

Parents have now started a petition to keep the preschool programrunningat least until the end of the school year.

The shortage inqualified staff is being feltacross B.C., people in the child-care industry say,despite investmentsfrom both the provincial and federal governments.

At Little Sprout,which can accommodate40 children, associationpresidentDavid Scott says there have been staffing issues since September 2020.

Since then, the preschool has had to periodically run the program with justone permanent early childhood educator (ECE) and several substitutes filling therequired second position.

"We went through probably seven or eight substitute folks to cover the second position," Scott said in a statement to CBC News.

"Without permanent staff we have to rely on substitute staff [so]there are times when we go almost day to day uncertain if we have the required staffing to open the next day or week."

Across the city in East Vancouver, CollingwoodNeighbourhood House, whichemploys 50 ECEs and accepts 400 students, says it'soperating on a week-to-week basis as it can't find enough qualified ECEsto fill in when staff are sick or take days off.

WATCH |Parents speak out on abrupt closure of Vancouver preschool:

Vancouver parents speak out on abrupt closure of local preschool

2 years ago

Duration 0:31

Denise Ting, whose three-year-old son has been attending Little Sprout Preschool in Vancouver since September, says the school plays an important role in her child's education.

Making things worse for Little Sprout, Scott said, has been a simultaneous decrease in enrolment, with only around half of its 40 spaces filled this year.

"It may appear to parents that everything is going smoothly but like the duck analogy, the duck seems to glide across the pond while under the surface it is paddling like mad," Scott said.

Recruiting ECEs a challenge:child-care agency director

Melissa Hunt,executive director of Childhood Connections OkanaganFamily & Childcare Society in Kelowna, B.C.,says recruiting and retaining qualifiedECEsisa challenge.

She said a survey conducted by the organization in November2021 showed more than 200 child-carespaces were "unavailable" in the Central Okanagan.

"Those are existing spaces or ones that have been open but not able to have children because they don't have educators in place for staffing," Hunt explained.

WATCH|Early childhood educators are fleeing the job:

Early childhood educators fed up and fleeing the job

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Canada is promising 250,000 affordable childcare spots over the next four years, but with low pay and difficult working conditions, many early childhood educators are getting out of the profession. CBCs Christine Birak visits a Toronto daycare to find out more about why the workforce is shrinking.

ECEs have been"under-respected and underpaid," for years, but theCOVID-19 pandemichas made it much worse, said Sharon Gregson with the Coalition of Child Care Advocates for B.C.

"With COVID and working with, for a long time, unvaccinated population of young children, the close contact ... the stress and the burnout has made it a very challenging work environment," she said.

Province aims to expand wages

In a statement to CBCNews, the province saidthere arealways fluctuations in the number of available child-care spaces in B.C., as "child-care operators move, retire or make other changes to their business."

Katrina Chen, B.C.'s minister of state for child care, says the province is currently working on strategies such as bursaries and stabilizing pay,along with professional development opportunities, to better support certified ECEs.

"We're building a wage grid to make sure that they can be paid more predictable and stable wages when they come into this workforce," Chen added.

Gregson said the median wage for ECEs in B.C. is $25 an hour.

"That means half the early childhood educators in the province are earning less than $25 ... and it really remains an underfunded sector," she said.