Mount Pearl school not ready for full-day kindergarten, says mom

A mother in Mount Pearl says full-day kindergarten should not go ahead at a primary school there because of overcrowding.

Beth Edwards Antle already has one child in Grade 2 at St. Peter's Primary, and her daughter starts kindergarten in the fall.

Antle said she doesn't have numbers on how many students the school was built to handle, but says with full-day kindergarten, there will be more than 700.

"For example, right now, the children rarely, if ever, get outside to play. And if you are adding another hundred children to that, I mean, it's going to be nonexistent."

The Eastern School District is doing a renovation at the school, but Antle said parents have been told it won't be ready for this fall.

"The renovation was scheduled to be finished by September 2017. But now, of course, we have the first one-year delay. Now they are not going to have it completed until November 2018."

Antle said that right now, St. Peter's just doesn't have the space to accommodate full-day kindergarten.

It is irresponsible to put these children in that position...It's not safe, and it's not responsible.- Beth Edwards Antle

"I'm fully supportive of full-day kindergarten, so that's important to say, but what I'm against is implementing it before we are ready," she told the St. John's Morning Show Tuesday. 

"If we don't have the infrastructure in place in terms of the renovation, then it is irresponsible to put these children in that position. Not just four and five-year-old kindergarten students, but to do this to the school population. It's not safe, and it's not responsible."

'A recipe for disaster'

Antle said there will be four kindergarten classes at the school, and according to government, there will be 26 to 28 students and two teachers in each class. 

"But this is not an issue of ratio. The issue is the space. We do not have the space," she said.

"Right now, there's 21 or 20 kids in those classes and that is really at its limit. We also have a safety issue there with a parking lot that is chaotic, and very, very dangerous as of today. So adding in another hundred kids, which means more buses, more parents dropping off, more foot traffic, a construction crew. It's a recipe for disaster."

In response to questions from the CBC, the Eastern School District said the Department of Transportation and Works has engaged a traffic engineer to provide interim and long-term recommendations for traffic and parking lot procedures at the school.

The School District also said the long-term plan for St. Peter's Primary is an extension project that will see the current gymnasium converted into six classrooms and a new gym added. 

The school will also get a new industrial kitchen.