What a beautiful day to be outside exploring all of these big machines, and having a bite to eat!  What a great community we live in!  So many businesses and organizations brought their machines to show the children!  Thanks also to our parent and community helpers!

Over many years, parents have expressed that a 2.5 hour preschool class was just not long enough!  The Salmo Child Care Society heard that concern, and has increased their part-time program to 4.25 hours! 
 
This change comes with a change to the program name and license-type.  The Salmo Children's Centre Preschool will now be the Salmo Children's Centre Junior Kindergarten, and will now be under a Group Child Care license, rather than a Preschool license.
 
Parents who use the Junior Kindergarten Program will now qualify for the same benefits as those who use the Group Child Care Program, including a daily Parent Fee Reduction rate of $5 (since the program is more than 4 hours long,) and a full-day rate for the Affordable Child Care Benefit for families that qualify.  Some of the criteria for qualification in the Affordable Child Care Benefit program include:  working, looking for work, attending a school or training institution, a medical condition, or a recommendation from MCFD.
 
Our original hope was that, by creating a longer program, we could lessen the burden on our wait lists for the other groups at the Centre.  We are still anticipating this to be true, and are looking forward to seeing how that plays out.
 
The staff and board are excited about the programming possibilities that a longer program offers.