After new provincial child-care regulations came into effect last month, many Jewish daycares, preschool and nursery programs that weren’t in compliance with the new rules were forced to shut down – either temporarily or permanently – leaving countless parents scrambling to find spots for their kids. 

The Child Care and Early Years Act replaced the Day Nurseries Act and applies to unlicensed child care, home child-care providers contracted by a licensed agency, licensed home child-care agencies, and licensed child-care centres. 

Some of the new rules dictate that a provider can only care for a maximum of two children under the age of two; that a licensed home child-care provider can care for a maximum of six children under the age of 13; and that the maximum number of children applies regardless of the number of adults in the home.

Eitz Chaim Schools was one of the schools affected by the new legislation, forcing it to temporarily shut down its nursery and pre-nursery programs. 

A letter to Eitz Chaim parents said administrators learned before the start of the school year that the new legislation would revoke a “grandfather clause” that permitted private schools to provide nursery school without a license.

The administrators were confident the school would qualify for a licence exemption, “on the grounds that the primary purpose of our programs is not simply ‘to provide temporary care and supervision of children’ (for which licenses are now required) but rather to… ‘provide religious, cultural and linguistic instruction’ (which programs are exempt from the license requirement),” the letter said. 

But the Ministry of Education ruled Eitz Chaim didn’t qualify for the exemption. The school’s legal counsel advised that the ministry would likely allow it to operate with an extension while it sort things out with the province, but “to our shock and dismay, the ministry informed us that no such extension period would be provided, and that the ministry would not allow Eitz Chaim to open our nursery and pre-nursery programs without the license,” the Eitz Chaim letter said.

Since the ruling, Eitz Chaim has applied for a license and is working to meet the requirements on issues such as zoning, fire code, health code, building code, insurance and specific operating policies, the administrators said.

A spokesperson said the ministry would not be able to comment on this issue by The CJN’s deadline.

Eva Klein, who planned to enrol her two-year-old daughter in Eitz Chaim’s nursery program, said although the situation isn’t ideal, she was able to secure care for her daughter while she waits for Eitz Chaim to reopen, which the school believes will likely be after Sukkot.

“Thankfully for me, I had back up child care that has been working out, and when the license comes in after the holidays, it’ll actually work out well for me, because I won’t have to worry about taking her out of school for chunks of time [because of the holiday closures] and then needing to re-transition her,” Klein said.

“They have one of the best nursery programs, and we’re just waiting anxiously to hear that they got the green light and we can start sending our kids there.”

For Renat Keslassy, currently on maternity leave, the new rules made finding daycare for her infant son very difficult. “It’s hard enough as it is to find a daycare for a one-year-old. This made it way harder,” she said.

After reserving a spot for her son at a Jewish home daycare in the summer, she got a call from the provider in late August.

“She said, ‘These new regulations came in and I’m sorry, I can’t take him anymore because I can only take two kids under two, and those people called me before you did.’”

Keslassy said she looked into the home daycare that cared for her older son when he was an infant. “She said she would hold a spot for me… She called me a few days later and she said, ‘Oh my God, I don’t even know what’s happening, I can’t even take him. I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and now all of a sudden I don’t know what I’m going to do.’”

Keslassy said she eventually found a daycare centre that accepted her son and is in compliance with the new regulations.

Sarah Binder, director of Gan Sameach preschool, which operates out of the Shomrei Shabbos Chevrah Mishnayos Congregation in Toronto, said the school was not licensed, so she decided to close until it went through the application process.

Binder said she’s in the process of applying, but doesn’t know when she’ll be able to reopen. “If [the ministry] comes in and they like what they see, they could give me a provisional licence, and we could operate while heading toward the real licence,” she said.

“I know of a lot of home daycares – at least 10 – that shut down out of choice. A significant amount of kids were left with nothing.”

She said Gan Sameach served 40 kids in two classes – one with two- to three-year-olds, the other with three- to four-year-olds.

Binder said she knew the changes were coming, “but the problem is we were already operating. We couldn’t shut down while we were operating already. We had to wait for the new school year and take care of it then. We weren’t sure if everyone would close down and have to start again. I thought maybe I could go through the process while operating, but our lawyer advised us not to do that.”

She said many parents have opted to arrange for home child care with an unlicensed provider who is permitted to care for five children at once.

“Some people are just waiting at home for [Gan Sameach] to re-open. They may have nannies or they’re not working.”