Purcell International Preschool (PIP) held a town hall meeting with parents at their facility in Meadowbrook on Wednesday, Nov. 6 to address what Duncan MacLeod, President of PIP, described as a precarious situation they've found themselves in, and to urge those in attendance, including local government representatives, to petition for change.
"To start with, to the parents, we are not here to tell you that we’re closing," MacLeod said at the meeting. He was joined by Preschool ECE-IT/SN Baylie Migneault. "We’re here to update you and activate you in support of helping us make sure that we don’t, because that is the goal and there are ways forward.
"Unfortunately the most apparent one for us at this point is advocacy and activation. We have hit a brick wall with regard to where we’re at and what the future looks like for childcare, not just in our community, where the lay of the land is very uncertain, but also throughout the province."
MacLeod said that that PIP was formed as a subsidiary of Purcell Collegiate Incorporated in 2020, born from a local need for childcare, against the backdrop of a much broader provincial and national childcare crisis.
Since then MacLeod said that PIP has been characterized by "joy and pain." While the staff, parents and children all love the Meadowbrook space, that has its own gymnasium, bright and spacious classrooms and an on-campus forest area, the building itself is aging and expensive to maintain. And there have been numerous projects done to retrofit or upgrade the building to better suit its needs, much of which have been achieved through grants and fundraising.
Because of this, PIP has been actively looking for options to create more efficient spaces. This led to the design and development of a state-of-the-art geodesic dome built specifically for childcare. Because it was excluded from New Spaces Fund (NSF) grant consideration, the design and development was paid for by PIP.
MacLeod said its frustrating to see NSF granting money going to build conventional brick and mortar facilities for around $60,000 per space and take up to two years to build, when their geodesic dome can be built for around a quarter of that, and can go from procurement from its Kelowna-based manufacturer to existence on a plot of land in three to six months.
Beyond being denied funding for this proposed new option for childcare, and in spite of being challenged by their beloved but aged and expensive to maintain facility, Purcell has thrived, MacLeod said, until recently.
Two main things are negatively impacting PIP and potentially threatening its future, unless major change occurs.
The first is the new NSF-funded childcare facility being built by Rocky Mountain School District No. 6 in Marysville and operated by Summit Community Services. As it reached completion in July, Summit began staffing and the local market for childcare operation began irrevocably changing.
It started with Summit hiring PIP's manager, who is also an Early Childhood/Infant-Toddler Educator (ECE-ITE).
"As the beneficiaries of a state-of-the-art new building with lower overheads and higher enrolment, the employment package Summit offered her exceeded the best we could possibly do," MacLeod said.
"With a projected opening date of January 2025 for the new centre, we are now faced with the prospect of additional staff leaving for Summit and their new facility for what is predicted to be higher pay, a better geographic location, a better building, and more job security given the precarious predicament PIP suddenly finds itself in."
PIP has always offered an employment package that is on par or better than any in the area.
"We offer four weeks of paid holiday a year instead of two, 10 sick days instead of five, sick day buyouts, no sick day justifications or rationals — can be mental health days or discretionary days; supporting the wellbeing of our educators to be well when they’re here with your kids and that’s always been the priority and always been the focus."
PIP was then negatively impacted by way of the Child Care Fee Reduction Initiative (CCFRI), a governmental funding and regulatory mechanism that subsidizes fees parents pay to participating childcare facilities. Participation in CCFRI then allows childcare providers to access Child Care Operating Funding (CCOF) Wage Enhancement, which allows them to pay ECEs an additional $6 an hour via a BC-government subsidy and an additional $2 an hour courtesy of Columbia Basin Trust.
A new childcare provider in Kimberley was granted CCFRI approval to charge the fee-benchmark maximum, allowing them to pay $4 per hour more than PIP is currently able to afford.
This comes down to annual constraints placed on PIP that only allow for three per cent increases to their fees at a maximum. Due to being repeatedly limited, PIP is now at a 30 to 33 per cent funding disadvantage compared to the market benchmark.
MacLeod said that regardless of how loyal the PIP staff want to be, if someone offers them four to six dollars an hour more than PIP can, they understandably have to accept.
"The number one input in the childcare crisis isn’t space, it’s people," MacLeod said. "And the number one issue for these people is how they get treated: how they get compensated, how they get valued.
"In order for us to move forward and sustainably operate we need to be able to pay them what they deserve and pay them what we need to pay them in order to compete in this rapidly evolving marketplace. Because we’re 30 per cent behind as of now."
PIP then applied to the provincial government for "exceptional circumstance fee increases," amounting to $263 to $374 per child/per month depending on their age.
MacLeod described the process as arduous and largely inapplicable to PIP’s circumstances before going on to praise PIP’s new manager, Baylie Migneault, for her patience and diligence in navigating the process. On Oct. 31 PIP was informed that their application to raise its CCFRI-regulated fees had been declined.
MacLeod said that no explanation or recourse to appeal was provided, and PIP was instead offered what amounts to five per cent increases, substantially lower than required for it to remain open.
"What we’re hoping with having you all here, what we’re hoping with having our newly elected MLA here and any City Councillors and local media, is that through advocacy and agitation, for lack of a better term, we can help the government identify the issue," MacLeod said. "This is a systemic issue and I’d like to think it shouldn’t be that hard to fix."
One of the main questions from those in attendance was: what is Plan B?
That would be to reincorporate. MacLeod said they don't plan on giving up on PIP, so the plan is to try a month of "advocacy, agitation and awareness," before looking into reincorporation, which he described as "a nightmare and an unnecessary one."
The ultimate goal is to continue care without disruption.
Scott McInnis, MLA Elect for Columbia River-Revelstoke, suggested laying out these issues into a petition, to have something concrete to lay on a desk in Victoria.
For more information, follow PIP on Facebook and visit https://purcellpreschool.ca/
The Bulletin will report more on this story as it develops.
