As I'm sure many of our families at our playschool have read about the leasing increase for our playschool. Sadly, this affects many others who rent from EPS including, but not limited too, church groups, meals on wheels, day cares and out of school cares. For some it is heart breaking and for others, it will be the end to their programs. As of now, we will continue with 2013-2014 as planned, and look forward to AWESOME fundraising opportunities.
Our amazing chair, Jenny Samm, has been advocating for not only our programs, but surrounding programs. I will be posting this blog on the Edmonton Preschool Association facebook, hoping to support programs looking for templates or inspirations to write.
Enclosed are all of the great steps Jenny has taken so far, and a few of the letters she wrote.
Sadly, I can not attach word doc. so they are all written below.
1) Meeting with Sarah Hoffman
– I (Jenny) contacted Sarah’s office today and her admin assistant confirmed
that they received my email request sent yesterday requesting a
meeting. Unfortunately, Sarah had today off. The admin assistant has
printed the request for a meeting and put it on Sarah’s desk and told
me she would get back to me on Monday.
2) List of Questions
– We need to start gathering together a list of good, solid questions
to ask Sarah Hoffman when she meets with us. Christian (for Forest
Heights) has suggested that it would be wise to forward these questions
to Sarah before we meet with her so that she can research the questions
and provide good answers to us. Soooo…..put your thinking caps on and as you come up with good questions, email me and I will keep a list of all our questions.
Once we have a meeting date confirmed with Sarah, perhaps a few of us
could get together to go over the questions and select the ones we would
like to forward to Sarah.
(PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ADD QUESTIONS IN OUR COMMENTS)
3) Facebook -
Christian Ulrich from Forest Heights has done a lot for “the cause”
today. He has set up a facebook page called “Tenants of Edmonton
Public Schools” https://www.facebook.com/groups/416779971762662/ so
that we will have a forum for discussion and communication. In a few
minutes, I will send out an email that I would ask all of you to forward
to all your contacts so that we can all work together to voice our
concerns to Edmonton Public Schools.
4) Info From Edmonton Public Schools
- Christian also contacted Roland Lovey from the Planning Department of
EPS and found out that Edmonton Public Schools own all their own
buildings and do not lease space which if verified to be true
information creates some serious “holes” in the reasons that Edmonton
Public has listed for why lease rates are going up. Roland also quoted
that the cost per square foot to Edmonton Public Schools for the spaces
we lease (for electricity, water, etc.) for 2010/2011 was $7.60 per
square meter so the lease rate increase that we have been informed about
is not necessarily to cover the costs that Edmonton Public Schools
incur but to make a huge profit! Our rate for 2016 is $17.50 per square
foot which is a lot more than $7.60!!! Yikes! Of course, this
information has to be verified but Christian has suggested that this
information will help us formulate good, solid questions to ask Sarah
Hoffman when we meet with her.
5) List of Tenants
–See the link below for a list of all the tenants of Edmonton Public so
that we can contact as many of them as possible to join in raising
concerns about the lease increases. I contacted Leasing today and they
were definitely resistant to the idea of sharing the list but just 20
minutes ago the phone rang and they shared where we could access their
most updated list. Here is the link. There are a ton of
organizations. I will start on the process of trying to contact them
and hopefully through facebook, email, all your contacts, etc. we can
reach out to lots of the organizations.
6) Early Child Development (ECD) Mapping Project (initiated by Alberta Education)
– I have contacted Lana Brenneis who is the staff person for this
project and asked for their support. This is what she has written back.
I
will send out the information you have shared with me about the lease
rate increases to tenants of Edmonton Public Schools to all the Edmonton
coalitions (7 of them) including their chairs and coalition
assistants. I will ask them to write letters on the detrimental impact
this will have on affordable Early Education.
7) School Board Meeting – It would be great to send a small delegate of volunteers to the next School Board Meeting. The meeting is on Tuesday, June 18, 2013 at 2pm. Below is info about speaking at a meeting.
Speaking at Meetings (from the website http://www.epsb.ca/board/agenda.shtml):
Speaking at Board Meetings:
·
If a member of the public wishes to give a position to the Board on a
specific board report, the individual must pre-register with the Board
Office at 780-429-8021 by noon on the day of the board meeting. Comments should be kept to a maximum of three minutes and be addressed to the Board Chair.
Please Note:
At the February 5, 2013 board meeting, the Board Chair advised that the
Board is considering revising its practices with respect to the Comments from the Public and Staff Group Representatives
section of board agendas; but will try the changes over the next few
board meetings prior to making a final decision. The changes, beginning
with the February 12, 2013 board meeting, are as follows:
· Those wanting to speak under Comments from the Public and Staff Group Representatives at the beginning of a board meeting will be required to pre-register with the Board Office 780-429-8021 by noon on the day of the board meeting. Comments should be kept to a maximum of three minutes and be addressed to the Board Chair.
8) Getting the Media Involved
– We are lucky that the media (especially the Edmonton Journal) has
already been reporting on this but we need to continue to inform them
when we have new information. I forwarded copies of the letters of
concern to the Edmonton Journal this morning but if you have other info
or some type of unique perspective then please feel free to contact the
Journal, CBC, etc. – the more media exposure we get the better. Brent
Wittmeier) bwittmeier@edmontonjournal.com
who wrote the original article about this is following this story
closely and is even following our facebook page. Once we have a meeting
date with Sarah I will definitely contact the media to invite them to
attend.
For the letters PLEASE read them and change the fields appropriately
Letter (a)
May 31, 2013
School Board Chair
1 Kingsway Avenue
Edmonton, AB
T5H 4G9
(Your school board chair)
To Ms. Hoffman:
I am writing this letter of concern in
response to the recent notification of lease rate increases to those
organizations who lease from Edmonton Public Schools.
I am a parent of a child who is currently
enrolled at Capilano Playschool (your playschool), located at Hardisty School in
Edmonton (The
EPS location). I am
concerned about the lease rate increases for those organizations who lease
space from Edmonton Public Schools.
The news that the lease for our 64 square
meter playschool classroom at Hardisty School will increase from an annual fee
of $2240 to $11,200 over the next 3 years is shocking, to say the least. I am hopeful that our community playschool,
in a neighborhood full of committed and knowledgeable volunteers, will somehow
weather this storm but I fear for those in other parts of the city.
I am concerned for single parents who don’t
have time to write a letter of concern about lease increases and don’t have
money to pay more for daycare. I am
worried about those children who are classified as “high risk” who won’t be
able to attend preschool because fees are too high for their families. I am concerned about daycares, early learning
centers, and churches who lease space from Edmonton Public Schools who won’t be
able to afford the lease rate increases and will close their doors to those in
their community. I am concerned for
volunteers in our community who are already overworked that don’t have the
energy to speak up about the injustice of this lease rate increase.
I do however
feel reassured by the fact that our province of Alberta has in place a
Residential Tenancies Act (RTA). I do
not know this act thoroughly but I do know that “Landlords cannot increase the
rent payable by a tenant under a fixed term or periodic tenancy agreement until
a minimum of one year (365 days) has passed since the last rent increase or
since the start of the tenancy, whichever is later.” I am now wondering whether I need to lobby
for legislation so that organizations like Edmonton Public Schools would also
have to adhere to similar guidelines as those who lease from Edmonton Public
Schools (approximately how many groups is this) would then be protected from a
57% increase in September 2013 and then an additional 86 % increase in January
2014.
I am looking
forward to an opportunity to find out how my concerns are being addressed.
Sincerely,
Letter (b)
Sarah Hoffman
School Board Chair
1 Kingsway Avenue
Edmonton, AB
T5H 4G9
(Enter your school board chair)
To Ms. Hoffman:
I am writing this letter of concern in
response to the recent notification of lease rate increases to those
organizations who lease from Edmonton Public Schools.
I am a parent of a child who is currently
enrolled at Capilano Playschool (Enter your playschool), located at Hardisty
School (the
school your playschool is in) in Edmonton. Playschool has offered so
much to our family this year. My child
has benefited from the early learning rich environment as well as made
important gains in the areas of socialization and emotional development. My child has also benefited from being part
of the Hardisty School (the school your playschool
is in) environment where they have learned about important school
routines which will make the transition to elementary school so much
easier.
Our family has also benefited tremendously
from being involved in a parent run playschool. We have formed relationships with others in
the community which I know will benefit our school and community as our
children continue going to school together in future years. Never again will I spend so much time with
other parents from the school environment as I did this year. I spent time with other parents cleaning
toys, fundraising, serving as a teacher helper in the playschool classroom
every month, and dropping off and picking up my children from playschool
alongside other parents who live in my community. I know that the bonds that have been formed
are the foundation for working together with these other families at my local
school and in my community for years to come.
It breaks my heart that down the road
families in my community may not be able to afford to send their children to
playschool and experience the many benefits our family has experienced this
year because of the 400 percent increase in lease rates by Edmonton Public
Schools to preschools across our city.
If our Playschool remains in the heart of our community, I’m sure that
the playschool will have no choice but to increase fees to those attending in
order to pay their monthly lease to Edmonton Public Schools.
I understand that operational costs for
Edmonton Public Schools are high but I would hope there are more creative ways
of dealing with this issue then by increasing fees for non-profit organizations
like preschools to a rate that is not reasonable for any organization
(Especially a non-profit) to deal with.
Thank you for your time and
consideration. I look forward to hearing
back from you.
Letter (c)
Sarah Hoffman
School Board Chair
1 Kingsway Avenue
Edmonton, AB
T5H 4G9
(Enter your school board chair)
To Ms. Hoffman:
I am writing this letter of concern in
response to the recent notification of lease rate increases to those organizations
who lease from Edmonton Public Schools.
I am a parent of a child who is currently
enrolled at Capilano Playschool (Enter your playschool), located at Hardisty
School (the
school your playschool is in) in Edmonton. I am trying to come to terms with the news my
playschool received about Edmonton Public School’s four-year implementation
plan for increasing lease rates.
When I look at the bottom line figures that
the rate our playschool pays per square meter is going up from our 2013 rate of
$3.50 per square meter to $17.50 per square meter in 2016, I have to wonder if
there is another agenda behind this increase.
I know that the Provincial Budget that was released in March 2013 has
had significant impacts around the province.
Is Edmonton Public Schools hoping that reaction from the news of these
dramatic rate increases will lead to support from Edmontonians in lobbying our
provincial government for change? If
this is one of the goals of the lease rate increases, I would say you have been
successful in gaining our attention.
Now that you have our attention, I would like to encourage you to be
transparent in your requests from Edmontonians and from our provincial
government.
Yours truly,
c/c David Dorward, MLA for Gold Bar
7510 82 Avenue
Edmonton, AB
Canada T6C 0X9
Lastly, to receive updates on what our playschool is up to, and how our journey is going, please add us to facebook https://www.facebook.com/CapilanoPlayschool?ref=hl
Sincerely,
Ms Asha
