School daycare services lose millions to telework

Like thousands of other parents in Quebec, Claudia Iakab, who has been working from home since the start of the pandemic, no longer entrusts her children to school daycare. School service centers are thus losing revenues of a few million dollars while their budget balance is fragile.

Louise Leduc
Press

“With COVID-19, I am not comfortable leaving my children at the daycare where the groups are more mixed than in class,” explains M^me Yakab. During pedagogical days, I keep them all day at home. ”

The daycare services of the Marguerite-Bourgeoys School Service Center (CSSMB) thus lost a quarter of their regular students compared to the pre-pandemic situation, while the Montreal School Service Center (CSSDM) lost some 11%.

In 2020-2021, the CSSDM will therefore receive $ 13.6 million less from its daycare services, whether it be parental contributions ($ 8.55 per day) or government grants.

In addition to having lost more than 4,100 regular students in daycare compared to the pre-pandemic, the CSSMB also has fewer students who attend it sporadically, as well as fewer children registered for lunch. .

According to the Ministry of Education, some 22,000 fewer children than before the COVID-19 epidemic attended school daycare services in Quebec last year (data as of September 30, 2021 have not yet been compiled. for the whole province).

Help from Quebec to come?

Roxanne Doucet is also one of the teleworking parents who have chosen to shorten their children’s day at school. As soon as the bell rings, at 3 pm, she goes to pick up her son in kindergarten. “My husband and I are both teleworking. We find that for a child in kindergarten, the days in class are already long and we are able to adjust our schedules. ”

The older brother went to kindergarten to grade six. The pandemic has served as a kind of training for the family, which has tamed having a young child at home while working.

Annie Bourassa, media relations manager, indicates that the CSSMB is in “talks with the ministry for a possible reimbursement of the costs associated with COVID-19, in particular those related to the shortfall for childcare services”.

Ditto for the Montreal school service center.

In mid-October, Jean-François Del Torchio, strategic director in the office of the Minister of Education, indicated rather that the government had not been questioned about this by the school service centers.

The Legault government has already covered some of the deficits of the school service centers when the schools were completely closed in the spring of 2020.

At the Pointe-de-l’Île school services center, school daycare attendance is getting closer to what it was before the pandemic. Nevertheless, in some schools, sometimes a few children less is enough for the center to lose a specialized technician that we can only have, for example, in the presence of 200 students or more, indicates Valérie Biron, communications manager. .

Life changing for children

Beyond the loss of income, Marie-Julie Béliveau, psychologist and professor of clinical child psychology at the University of Montreal, wonders what the impacts are for children.

“If the parent is at home and feels that makes the child’s schedule less busy or stressful, that may be good. ”

But for kids who find themselves with fewer supervised activities and who may be left to their own devices more during the hours before dinner, that’s not an ideal scenario, she says.

M^me Béliveau notes that the children themselves may have very little motivation to go to daycare services which do not necessarily organize activities, particularly in times of a pandemic, when the outings may have been canceled.

In any event, Ms. Béliveau regrets that too little is said about school daycare services, “as if that was not so much part of the reality of the school. However, the children spend many hours there, almost as many as in class ”.

School daycare services are generally offered from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., in addition to welcoming children on leave during pedagogical days.