B.C.’s licensed daycare centres will remain open for now even as the province moves to suspend all K-12 classes due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Premier John Horgan said his government based its decision on the advice of provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and the need for health-care workers and other front-line service to have access to child care.
“At this time, it’s business as usual, but families should be ready and trying to make plans for changes immediately if we get new information,” Horgan said.
That’s in contrast to the position taken by a number of other provinces. Alberta has closed all licensed daycares, while Manitoba announced Tuesday that its licensed daycares would close by the end of Friday.
The organizations that represent child-care operators and educators are questioning B.C.’s “double standard” of protecting students and teachers in the regular school system while leaving daycares open.
“We’re just trying to make sure that the children in our care and the teachers who teach in those spaces are safe and healthy,” said Amanda Worms of the B.C. Child Care Owners Association.
“That is the No. 1 concern right now, because as it stands, we just don’t understand how one sector is not safe and the other sector is.”
Worms noted that Henry has advised against gatherings of 50 or more people yet the total number of children and staff at some daycare centres exceeds that number.
As well, Worms said pre-school children in daycares are incapable of practising social distancing.
“They’re barely able to keep their fingers out of their mouths for three seconds let alone be expected to maintain distance.”
In addition, she said many child-care providers have been unable to obtain the materials needed to sanitize their facilities due to the run on goods and supplies since the outbreak began.
As a result, Worms said, there’s an outcry among early childhood educators who feel like they’re being put at risk after being neglected for years.
“Now they’re being asked to basically come in as the heroes to keep our medical system open, when they can’t even get paid a proper wage,” she said. “So we have a lot of frustrated, frustrated teachers.”
Henry told reporters Tuesday that government officials are working on a daycare strategy similar to the one developed for the K-12 system.
“We’re working in the same way for daycares to make sure that we can keep the daycare safe, that it’s safe for the staff and the families and the children, but also that we can make sure that we have that essential service available for our essential workers as well,” she said.
Henry said the strategy will be released “in the coming days.”
In addition, Education Minister Rob Fleming said he expects school districts and independent schools “will have plans in place to maintain some level of service for children of people who are performing essential services on the front line,” such as doctors, nurses, paramedics and pharmacists.
