By Kellah Lavoie

Provincial government offers up money

May 6, 2011 | 6:17 AM

There will be more spaces open for pre-kindergarten this fall.

The Ministry of Education is providing funding for four schools to get additional programs – Queen Mary Community School, Riverside Community School, Kinistino School and St. John Community School.

“We are always looking to expand our pre-K program, but that is dependent on ministry money,” said Donna Baergen, superintendent of schools for the Saskatchewan Rivers School Division.

The provincial budget provided the money for 40 new programs across the province, bringing the total to 270, said Kathy Abernethy, director of the early childhood education unit within the Early Years branch of the Ministry of Education.

The ministry asked schools to submit expansion plans, and from there they considered who most needed the programs.

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“Not all three and four year olds in Prince Albert can attend pre-k programs in every school. So it’s (placed) in the community that has the most children and often where there is high numbers of people that are also more vulnerable families,” Baergen said, explaining spots are set aside for children who need a head start in school.

It is quite a process to decide who needs the spots, Abernethy explained.

“We used a combination of indicators, they are called community risk indicators, most of these are statistics Canada information, but we also use Ministry of Social Services information as well as information from birth questionnaires,” she said. The five community risk indicators are social assistance rates, lone parent rates, low parent education rates — the rates of adults in the area who have not graduated high school —housing and homes major need of repair and high risk at birth.

Baergen called pre-kindergarten an early intervention program — helping children building language and social skills while interacting with children their own age.

There are already waiting lists at Riverside and Queen Mary, schools that each have two half day programs.

Each school is being given $65,000 in funding for operating costs. They will primarily cover the cost of the teacher and pre-kindergarten associate, but it also goes towards nutrition, transportation, professional development, parent education and parent engagement, Abernethy explained.

An additional one-time payment will be funded for start-up costs – the cost of putting the classroom together.

Each new program will hold between 16 and 20 students and the Saskatchewan Rivers School Division hopes to have them ready to go in the fall.

klavoie@panow.com