Full details, page 7 TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2010
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Kindergarten
Full-day class still leaves lots of time to be a kid Viewpoint
Tom ZILLICH
M
y son is five years old, which means he’s headed to kindergarten class today for the first time. He’s thrilled by the prospect of being with his buddies and meeting new friends, playing with cool new toys, story time, ham sandwiches packed into his beloved Hot Wheels Battle Force 5 backpack, all that good stuff. It’s a big day. For him, beyond the abbreviated hours of the first few classes, it will be a 9-to-3 daily adventure. Yes, full-day kindergarten is here and, we, his parents, are thrilled our local school is among the first wave in B.C. to offer FDK (as it’s known in bureaucratic circles) to regular-stream students. But not everyone is so excited about sending their children off to class at such a young age. Others can’t stomach the $280 million investment by the province to implement full-day kindergarten for more than half of all five-year-olds this fall, and all eligible kids by September 2011. That large chunk of change is in addition to the $144.5 million needed for 665 new and upgraded classrooms for all those knee-high newbies. It’s all so controversial, an entire Canadian website is devoted to the issue (fulldaykindergarten.ca).
For many Surrey youngsters, full-day kindergarten beckons.
❚PHOTO/Sharon Doucette
see FULL-DAY page 3
Generation
X
(BM)
No matter their age, bike riders find their thrills at Newton track. Living, 12 and 13