Excerpts
The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) and Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) are committed to building thousands of desperately needed child care spaces — particularly in underserved areas in Scarborough and northwest Toronto — but we need the Ministry of Education to follow through on its end of the bargain.
Recently, there has been a lot of back and forth in the news about who’s responsible for dozens of promised child care projects and we felt it was important to not only set the record straight, but share one possible solution to get shovels in the ground now.
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Embedding child care services in schools is the gold standard of child care. A seamless transition from early learning into the broader education system, co-locating child-cares in schools reduces the stress families face when planning for their child’s care, fosters a stronger connection with the school community, and removes the emotional strain associated with finding child care providers close to their child’s school — not to mention the ease of doing one drop-off and one pickup each day.
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By working together with the Ministry of Education and Toronto, we can create a more equitable and efficient child care system that aims to provide every child in Toronto with access to high-quality, integrated child care services co-located in schools. We urge the ministry to work with us to come up with a creative solution that gets spaces built now where they truly belong, in our schools.
Rachel Chernos Lin is the chair of the Toronto District School Board. Nancy Crawford is the chair of the Toronto Catholic District School Board.