The Greater Victoria School District is contemplating a “coastal kindergarten.” While trustees should be lauded for supporting increased opportunities to experience and learn within a natural, outdoor setting, the idea is sadly contemplated as a “program of choice,” which would benefit only a handful of kindergarten students. As such, it would divert resources away from other children, create unfair opportunities for a small group, and potentially worsen the growing segregation that already exists in our school district.
Nature kindergartens are an idea borrowed from European schools — in particular, German forest kindergartens. They focus on addressing the “nature deficit” that children experience in the modern world. Spending more time in the outdoors provides children with the opportunity to play and explore and learn in a natural setting. Research suggests there are numerous developmental benefits to outdoor play.
Most teachers of elementary and middle-school age children try to take their classes outside and to integrate outdoor activities into their learning plans. Trips to the beach, local parks and even camping are common in our schools.
However, a barrier to planning more outdoor activities is the requirement for sufficient adult supervision — for younger children, at least one adult for every 10 children. In fact, teachers often have to cancel planned events because they cannot get enough parent volunteers to meet the supervision requirements.
The proposed coastal kindergarten would be staffed with two full-time teachers and two full-time educational assistants in order to meet the supervision requirements. This is funding beyond what every other kindergarten class receives, which is one teacher, and educational-assistant support only for identified students with special needs, for limited hours.
As the district is facing a significant deficit in this round of budgeting, to fund this program will mean even less educational-assistant time for other classes.
The proposal is also designed as a “program of choice.” This means the program is offered for only two classes, and students can apply from across the district on a first-come, first-served basis.
While programs of choice seem attractive to parents because they provide options, the reality is that only a small number of the district’s children can be placed in these programs.
Moreover, all programs of choice have an impact on the demographic distribution in other classrooms.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has conducted extensive reviews of how programs of choice affect schools, and in particular the equitable access to quality programming that is a fundamental tenet of public schooling.
After two decades of the integration of school-choice policies, the research shows what teachers see every day — that increased “choice” also leads to increased segregation. Parents with time and resources are the ones who search out special school programs and line up to enrol their children. The impact of school choice is increased segregation — by social class, by gender and by race.
The effect of school choice is already evident in Victoria schools, where we have greater numbers of girls in French immersion, more students with special needs in English-track programs, and a greater concentration of First Nations students in particular schools. Introducing more programs of choice will only exacerbate this segregation and undermine the equity and diversity in our school system.
If trustees can find the money for two educational assistants, and they want to increase outdoor education in kindergarten, they should apply this funding equitably to all kindergarten classes and students. The resources required for just two classes could be shared by all schools and each class could have more opportunity for supervised study in the outdoors.
Kindergarten outdoors is a wonderful idea, and one that should be afforded every kindergarten child.
Tara Ehrcke is past-president of the Greater Victoria Teachers’ Association.
