Parents speak out against abrupt Vancouver preschool closure

A Vancouver preschool is closing its doors next month, leaving many parents scrambling to find a new place for their kids.

The Little Sprouts Preschool program, run by the West End Community Centre Association, is set to close in December.

But some parents are speaking out about the abrupt decision, and how the closure affects their kids and families.

Sahar Maclachlan’s son attends the program, and she says she is devastated to hear about the closure.

“Everyone’s just sort of scrambling on what to do,” she explained. She also added there aren’t many preschools in the neighbourhood.

(CityNews Image)

Related Article: 

• Surrey Grade 4 student has had four teachers — and it’s only November

“It’s basically one of the only preschools locally that’s close to us.”

The program usually ends in December and then picks up in the new year, but the announcement of the permanent closure came as a shock to many parents.

“We didn’t see it coming until we received the letter,” parent Denise Ting explained.

In addition to the closure affecting their children’s wellbeing, one parent says the organization should have asked parents before deciding to close.

“Maybe things could be juggled around a little bit…they could just maybe have gotten a little bit more feedback from the parents,” Rachel Johnston said.

Staffing and enrollment problems 

In a statement on Nov. 10 from David Scott, the president of the association, he explains the decision was made because of staffing and enrollment issues.

“Over the last two and a half years we have multiple times required on-call, substitute staff to support our permanent staff, sometimes with very little advance notice. This dependency creates an unstable environment where schedule disruptions and last-minute cancellations have occurred far too often. We have also experienced a steady decline in enrollment which is likely linked to our schedule unreliability,” Scott explained.

But Sharon Gregson with the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC, says the group isn’t the only one facing staffing issues.

“It is very difficult these days to recruit and retain certified early childhood educators, there’s just not enough of them to meet demand, despite the province making investments in the workforce,” she explained.

Johnston says that her son was registered in the program until the summer of next year.

“[I am] pretty angry that they couldn’t maybe figure out a way to at least continue it until June when we had signed up for,” she said.

But some of the parents are hopeful the closure won’t go through and have started a petition to keep the program running.

(CityNews Image)

“I think that everything should be done to keep it open,” Johnston said.

Amanda Huppunen says the program gave her son a chance to socialize with other children in his age group — something she doesn’t want to give up.

“I think it’s such an asset to the community because there aren’t very many programs like it,” she said. “We’re willing to really work with the teachers and staff to keep this program open.”

Ting added, “We can find a solution to do this together.”