Parental and community involvement has been one of the cornerstones of kindergarten in New Zealand since the movement started more than 120 years ago.
From 1 July Kidsfirst will able to sustain our services with a fee based structure, so we will no longer be dependent on parents to help fundraise for the absolute basics, nor will we need to take up their valuable time on administrative functions.
However, we are still very grateful for the support we get from parents and local communities for the ‘extras’ and parental involvement continues to be vital to us.
We would like to see parents’ valuable time go into the aspects of their childrens’ early childhood education that really matter — importantly, the learning — rather than be consumed by helping their kindergarten stay afloat to pay the day-to-day running expenses.
The role of the committees that presently support our kindergartens with their time and energy will evolve over the next year or so.
We are immensely thankful to all of the parents and other supporters of kindergarten who continue to be so generous, and look forward to working with them in the years to come.