In this issue: 

• AECEO welcomes Erin Filby
• Call For Articles for Fall 2019 issue
• AECEO Executive Coordinator’s Update
• Decent Work Campaign FAQs
• Education Consultations: Kindergarten Classroom
• In Response To Bill 66: Restoring Ontario’s Competitiveness Act
• AECEO 2019 Ontario Budget Submission
• Inclusion Is An Experience, Not A Placement (Abstract)
• Profiles Of The Nominees For The 2019-2020 Provincial Board Of Directors

 For this issue, the full publication is being made available to the public.

The Ministry of Education has confirmed that the wage enhancement grant will continue in 2019-20. Also confirmed was that child care spending this year will the same as last year, with the addition of the new tax credit announced in yesterday's Budget.

Many thanks to all who participated in getting petitions signed, emailing their MPPs and raising this issue to the level that the government had to listen! This shows that advocacy campaigns do work and we will continue to fight for a professional wage and decent work in the early years and child care sector and a funded wage grid with a minimum $25/hour for RECEs.

Toronto Star article

The AECEO is deeply concerned by the regulation changes to the Child Care and Early Years Act, 2014, the Education Act, and the Employment Standards Act, 2000, proposed in Bill 66. These changes will lead Ontario in the wrong direction, one that compromises the quality of care and education for young children and does not contribute to purposeful system building.

RECEs benefit when they are well supported and can attend to and engage with the children in their care purposefully and meaningfully. In turn, children and families benefit from higher quality programs when RECEs are well supported and well compensated. From this perspective, we believe the government must reconsider their approach and take on their responsibility of funding and supporting early years services and RECEs.

We urge the government to withdraw Bill 66 and to engage in a full public consultation process on all of its provisions with respect to the Early Childhood Education and Care system in Ontario.

Click HERE to read the AECEO's full submission to the Standing Committee on General Government.

The AECEO fully supports the two educator model and current class sizes in Full Day Kindergarten (FDK). 

An extensive body of empirical evidence documents the learning benefits of the two-educator (RECE and OCT), play-based FDK curriculum model for children’s learning. The unique and complimentary training of RECEs and OCTs working in partnership lends itself to rich educational and developmental learning opportunities for children at a critical point in their young lives. Ontario has been, and continues to be, a leader in early learning since it acted on the innovative recommendations of the commissioned report, With Our Best Future in Mind: Implementing Early Learning in Ontario, completed in 2009.

We are only now beginning to realize the benefits of Ontario’s existing FDK program for children and families. While we recognize the roll-out of a program of this size and nature would have challenges, all current evidence suggests Ontario’s unique, two educator model, play-based FDK program is significantly benefiting Ontario’s children and families.

The AECEO acknowledges that improvements are always possible in the early childhood education system – and we emphasize that government change to policy and process should be based on the highest quality research evidence, careful analyses of empirical data, and through comprehensive consultation.

We urgently call on the government to reconsider any changes it may propose to the FDK program in Ontario without reviewing the research evidence and engaging in a formal, transparent and systematized consultation with stakeholders including parents and educators.

It is imperative that Full Day Kindergarten, with the RECE-OCT educator team and a class size hard cap of twenty-six, remain universally accessible to all of Ontario’s children.

Please click here to read AECEO's full submission to the Ministry of Education's Class Size Consultation

Ministry of Education Press Conference at 8:30 a.m. March 15 will be live-streamed.

With over 12,000 signatures garnered on hard copy petitions in less than a month - and they are still coming in - the WEG Petition initiative shows that overwhelming support for keeping the grant exists in this province. AECEO members, Decent Work Teams, and supporters across Ontario worked hard to gather signatures and spread the word. You have made the petition a huge success! Thank you!

The petition, urging legislators to maintain the $2 per hour Provincial Wage Enhancement Grant, is being presented in the Ontario Legislature this week - so now is the perfect time to keep up the pressure to continue the grant by contacting your MPP directly to reinforce and further support the message.

HOW?

There is an easy 5 minute action that you, your colleagues, friends and family can take to demonstrate to each MPP how strong the support is among their own constituents/voters. MPPs need to hear from you - and they will pay attention if they receive strong feedback about an issue.

Sending an email or leaving a phone message is a quick and easy way to communicate with your elected representative. It can be short and sweet. All you need to say is that, as their constituent, you want them to make sure that the wage grant continues! If you signed the petition or have a personal story to tell you can include that too. Please copy [email protected] on the email, or let us know who you have contacted so we can follow up with the MPP.  If you are looking for a template to copy/paste/modify - the OCBCC has created one: http://www.childcareontario.org/petition_email_template

Support from RECEs who do not currently receive the grant is also important – not only because it is of benefit to fellow RECEs, but because it preserves the concept of government support for wages - which is crucial to our larger goal: the implementation of a funded wage grid across Ontario.

Click here to find your provincial riding and your MPP's contact information.

Imagine the power emails from 55,000 RECEs would have!

#ECEPower #DecentWork #ProfessionalPay

If you will be in Toronto on Thursday and are able to attend the presentation of the petition to the Legislative Assembly please let us know at [email protected].

Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario (AECEO)

Submission to the Ministry of Finance 2019 Pre Budget Consultations

 We support Registered Early Childhood Educators (RECEs) in their professional practice and advocate for the recognition and appropriate compensation of the profession. RECEs are fundamental to high quality early learning and child care (ECEC) in Ontario.

Summary of Budget Action Recommendations

1. Commit to continuing the $2/hour Wage Enhancement Grant (WEG) and immediately extending it to include RECEs in other sectors including EarlyON staff
2. Develop and implement a publicly funded province wide wage scale with a $25/hour minimum wage for RECEs and commensurate compensation for early years staff, a benefits package, including paid sick and personal leave days; we advise the Government to commit at least $375 million as a first step to establishing the wage scale

Click here to read the full submission.

Job Posting

Community Organizing and Communications Coordinator

Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario (AECEO)

About AECEO

The AECEO is the professional association for registered early childhood educators (RECEs) in Ontario. AECEO advocates for respect, recognition, appropriate wages and working conditions for all RECEs. The AECEO’s mission is to build and support a strong collective voice for RECEs so they can participate in and influence positive change that benefits children, families, educators and communities.

AECEO is a membership based organization with approximately 2,000 current members. Our members are individual RECEs, ECE students, early years staff and child care organizations/programs from across Ontario.

About the Professional Pay & Decent Work Campaign

Since 2013 the AECEO's Professional Pay & Decent Work Campaign has been successfully engaging and organizing hundreds of RECEs, early years staff, parents and community members in Ontario to advocate for quality affordable early years and child care programs where RECEs and staff are well-supported with professional pay and decent work. The overarching goal of this campaign is to build and sustain an ECE led movement for decent work. The Community Organizing and Communications Coordinator will assume a leadership role within the Professional Pay & Decent Work Campaign. The campaign is a project funded by the Atkinson Foundation Decent Work Fund. Our project partners include the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care (OCBCC), Institute for Change Leaders (ICL) and Atkinson Centre for Society and Child Development.

Application deadline - February 18, 2019

The AECEO is looking for a Community Organizing and Communications Coordinator to assume a leadership role in coordinating and implementing the Professional Pay & Decent Work Campaign initiatives and ongoing communication strategies and events.

Details about this exciting opportunity may be found posted here.

Hamilton Wentworth Catholic Child Care Centres

Registered Early Childhood Educator (Before and After School Program)

Join our family of early learning centres, where play is wondrous work.

If the thought of setting children and their families up for success brings you pure joy, we want to meet you. If you’re looking to grow, learn, and enhance your skills, we have a place for you. Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic Child Care Centres puts play at the centre of learning each and every day.

We warmly invite you to join our dynamic team as part of our Before and After School program starting as soon as possible.

We hire for heart and talent. We’re looking for someone with the following qualifications: degree/diploma in Early Childhood Education, member of good standing with the College of Early Childhood Educators, Standard First aid/CPR level C, and experience working in school age programs.

Everyday, you’ll help children navigate their world through play.

In this issue: 

• Humans of ECE...Share your story
• RECEs share their experience with Decent Work
• Ontario Centres of Excellence for early years and child care
• The Kindergarten Partnership:  From Vision to Action
• Interview with Kim Hiscott RECE, Executive Director of Andrew Fleck Children's Services (Featured article to the public)
• Ontario Centres of Excellence for early years and child care
• The Kindergarten Partnership:  From Vision to Action

We are launching Humans of ECE..share your story on the provincial wage enhancement grant.  Continuing from our Humans of ECEPower campaign we want to hear from you why the provincial wage enhancement grant is important to you.

Write your comments on the template and tell us why you need to keep the provincial wage grant.  Take a picture of yourself holding it and email it to us at [email protected]

We are doing this campaign alongside the petition.  Make sure you print, sign and mail us original copies of the petition.  If you are intererested in collecting signatures in your community to present directly to your local MPP, please email us at [email protected] 

COMMUNITY SERVICES & INCOME SUPPORT
First Steps Early Learning and Child Care Centre
Highlands Early Learning and Child Care Centre
Fairview Early Learning and Child Care Centre
EarlyON Child & Family Centres

Requires:
Casual Supply Teacher(s)
East Parry Sound Location
Rate of Pay $19.36/hour, plus 4% vacation pay

Responsibilities:
To guide and supervise children enrolled in the Child Care Program in all areas of development,
under the direction of the Supervisor and in accordance with the Child Care and Early Years Act
and the philosophy of Child Care Resources, on a casual call-in basis.

COMMUNITY SERVICES & INCOME SUPPORT
Waubeek Early Learning and Child Care Centre
EarlyON Child & Family Centres

Requires:
Casual Supply Teacher(s)
West Parry Sound Location

Rate of Pay $19.36/hour, plus 4% vacation pay

Responsibilities:
To guide and supervise children enrolled in the Child Care Program in all areas of development,
under the direction of the Supervisor and in accordance with the Child Care and Early Years Act
and the philosophy of Child Care Resources, on a casual call-in basis.

In this issue: 

• Humans of ECE...Share your story
• RECEs share their experience with Decent Work
• Ontario Centres of Excellence for early years and child care
• The Kindergarten Partnership:  From Vision to Action
• Interview with Kim Hiscott RECE, Executive Director of Andrew Fleck Children's Services (Featured article to the public)
• Ontario Centres of Excellence for early years and child care
• The Kindergarten Partnership:  From Vision to Action

Provincial Wage Enhancement Grant Petition

We have partnered with the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care to launch a petition to continue the Provincial Wage Enhancement Grant to Registered Early Childhood Educators and early years staff in licensed child care.  This funding provides $2 per hour in wage support to many educators and it is critical that it continues.  Funding has not yet been confirmed beyond March 31, 2019.  The future of the grant is in the hands of the provincial government and will be decided by the Ontario Budget this spring. 

OPERATIONS SUPERVISOR: Children’s Services
Permanent Full-time Position, Fort Frances ON

Committed to meeting the needs of the community by providing services with care, integrity, and accountability, the Rainy River District Social Services Administration Board (RRDSSAB) delivers Early Learning and Child Care, Ontario Works, Social Housing, Land Ambulance and other services for all organized municipalities and unincorporated areas within the geographic District of Rainy River. 

The Rainy River District covers an area of approximately 15,487 sq. kilometers and has a population of 20,110 (2016 Census).  It is bordered on the north by the Kenora District, on the east by the Thunder Bay District, on the south by Minnesota, USA and on the west by the Province of Manitoba.

The RRDSSAB is seeking an Operations Supervisor/Children’s Services on a permanent full-time basis to join our team in Fort Frances, ON.  Reporting to the Integrated Services Manager/Children’s Services, the Operations Supervisor/Children’s Services is responsible for ensuring the delivery, effective operation, management and evaluation of directly operated children’s programs in accordance with the statutes, relevant legislation, policies of the Province of Ontario, RRDSSAB policies and procedures, and the College of ECE’s Standards of Practice and Code of Ethics.  This position is responsible for the direct supervision of assigned staff, providing leadership in child care initiatives, administrative and financial duties, health and safety responsibilities and liaising with community agencies to ensure high quality children’s services are provided to both children and their families.  Additional duties include back-up for the Integrated Services Manager and will require travel throughout the District and neighbouring Districts.    

The AECEO Board of Directors is very pleased to introduce Rachel Lafferty as the AECEO’s Executive Coordinator.

Rachel Lafferty is a Registered Early Childhood Educator with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and Health Science and a Bachelor of Education degree with an Ontario College of Teachers registration in addition to a Master of Education graduate degree with a specialization in Distance Education.

She was the first member of her immediate and extended family to earn postsecondary credentials and did so while owning and operating a small business full-time. Rachel has experience teaching in early learning, elementary school, and college settings. While coordinating an Indigenous Early Childhood Education program for nearly seven years, she wrote ECE curriculum with an Indigenous focus and established successful partnerships with various stakeholders and community organizations. This included the establishment of a partnership with Contact North to provide an online ECE program that would allow students who would otherwise not have the opportunity, due to geographic and other barriers, to earn their ECE credential.

Rachel has extensive experience teaching children and adults in both face-to-face and online classrooms in addition to part-time ECE Professorships in the college system. She believes strongly in professional advocacy and is looking forward to working with the Association of Early Childhood Educators as Executive Coordinator.

Ms. Lafferty currently resides in Peterborough with her spouse and family.

Happy New Year, happy 2019!!

As we reflect on 2018, we are inspired to continue to advocate for the socially important and valuable work of ECEs and early years staff that happens around the province with children, families and in communities.

Welcome to the Professional Pay and Decent Work Blog

What is the BLOG?

The PP&DW Blog is your go-to place for up-to-date information regarding the campaign. Here you will find updates on the 'Building Skills for Change in the Early Years Workshops', Task Force developments, current events and news and information regarding the changes in the early years and child care sector.

You can also follow the AECEO on Facebook and Twitter for instant updates!

 - @AECEOntario                               - @AECEO 

We have been hearing from ECEs and employers across the Province who are concerned about the Wage Enhancement Grant (WEG) continuing into next year. We understand that the Wage Enhancement Grant is important to the many ECEs and early years staff who receive this funding. We have heard no indication that the Wage Enhancement Grant is cancelled.

Here is what we know: