Save the Bears Nursery

On June 15, 2010, The Dufferin St.Clair Bears Nursery Co-op received a termination of lease letter stating that we must leave our classroom at Regal Road public school. Our last day would be June 30, 2011.   We are petitioning to have that decision repealed.

The Dufferin/St.Clair Bears Nursery Co-op is a community based not-for-profit child care program run by parent volunteers that has operated from a classroom at Regal Road PS for over 20 years. It was started by a group of committed, creative and forward-thinking parents who were dedicated to forming a safe, exciting and innovative environment for their children's early education. Since our inception, we have facilitated hundreds of pre-school children in the transition from home to school in addition to providing child care to JK/SK students via pick up, lunch, afternoon and extended programs.

With three registered ECEs on staff, we service over 50 families each year with a robust wait list for vacant spots.  The absence of the Bears Nursery   Co-op will leave these families with no options for childcare in a city where childcare spaces are very difficult if not impossible to come by and require years of patience to find.

We as a co-op have been planning for the all day JK and SK program which is now being rolled out across the TDSB. However, Regal road public school is not expected to receive this programming until 2013 at the earliest. What are our JK and SK children to do in the mean time? To cut off an essential service to so many families before alternate solutions can be found is short sighted. We are excited to implement another diverse co-op program which we are confident will continue to meet the needs of the students, parents and community.  We are eager to tap into Chris Spence’s vision of the “community school” for the TDSB, (National Post article , May 7, 2010, ‘An Idea Whose Time Has Not Come’) and see our co-op as a perfect fit for that vision. We wish to remain a vital part of the Regal Road Public School Community School Environment.