Shortage of staff | Childcare services ask to… leave the children at home

Childcare services in schools are so understaffed that some are asking parents to unregister their children to make room for the younger ones. The groups of students are growing: it is not uncommon for an educator to be responsible for 35 or 40 young people, or twice the ratio recommended by Quebec.

Marie-Eve Morasse
The Press

A few days after the start of classes, the daycare service of an elementary school in Quebec City launched a “call for help” to parents. Would it be possible to keep the oldest at home to accommodate the kindergarten 4 and 5 year olds? asked in an email. Due to a lack of staff, around ten places had to be freed up.

If we often talk about the shortage of teachers, that in daycare services is even worse, says Carl Ouellet, president of the Quebec Association of School Management Staff (AQPDE).

In many schools, he adds, the government ratio of 20 students per educator is not respected.

It is by increasing the ratio that we “solve” the problem of shortage, we observe at the Federation of school support staff (FPSS-CSQ).

“Is the security adequate, when we have 30, 35 children per educator? At 15 more students, you have to have eyes all around your head, ”says its president, Éric Pronovost, who himself was an educator in schools.

Daycare technician in an elementary school on the South Shore of Montreal, Rachel Gagnon considers herself lucky to have found all her educators this year, even though, on Monday, she was missing a third of her usual staff. “Sporadic” absences, she says.

In some schools, it happens that it is the janitor who comes to lend a hand at lunchtime.

In some places, parents have not only been asked to keep their children at home, but also encouraged the older ones to take babysitting courses to be able to stay on their own, reports the president of the Federation of Parents’ Committees of Quebec.

” It is not normal ! We are no longer in the 1980s, when it was common to see parents at home for lunch. Society has changed, the daycare service is an essential service, ”continues the president.

Recruitment

Thursday, the Patriotes school service center invites candidates to a day of “flash recruitment” for the daycare service of its schools in Varennes.

“Do you like young people and are comfortable with students presenting certain challenges? “, we ask in an announcement published on Facebook.

Educators are offered 7 to 20 hours per week, at a “minimum” hourly rate of $22.18, and candidates must be available Monday to Friday.

At the Capital School Service Center in Quebec City, 77 positions remained to be filled last week. At CSS Marie-Victorin, on the South Shore of Montreal, it is indicated that if all students can access the daycare service, 43 positions are still vacant.

Daycare technician Rachel Gagnon reminds us that working conditions do not help recruitment. Who can afford to work less than 20 hours a week? she asks.

In this context, many newly trained educators choose to work full-time in daycare centers or early childhood centres.

“Perhaps we should get out of the shackles we know and try to give full-time tasks [aux éducatrices dans les écoles] observes Kévin Roy, of the Federation of Parents’ Committees.

This is also the opinion of Éric Pronovost.

After almost three decades spent in a school, Rachel Gagnon worries about the future of daycare services, despite all the good will of those who work there.

“It’s organized, but less than what is required by the government. The requirements go down,” she says.

M^me Gagnon says she is still happy to go to work every morning. But given the current conditions, “if I had to do it again, I don’t know if I would choose to work in a school,” she adds.