Council will meet on 14 August to make a decision on its future role in kindergarten services.
In June, Council agreed to formally consider a proposal to cease running standalone, sessional kindergarten services and lease its buildings to alternate sessional providers from January 2025.
Since then, we have been consulting with our kindergarten staff to understand the impacts of the proposed changes.
Next week, Council will meet to consider this staff feedback along with the previous reports on the kindergarten service review to make a final decision.
Council has been reviewing its kindergarten services in light of big changes coming as part of the state government’s decision to increase hours, make kindergarten free and offer a second year of kindergarten before school.
Service reviews are a common part of delivering community services and are the responsible thing to do when there are such big changes ahead that could have impacts for our services and our community.
The thorough service review has included financial modelling, staff feedback, community consultation and the assessment of a demographically representative community panel.
Any change to our kindergarten services would be effective from January 2025. In 2024, Council will still deliver sessional kindergarten services for both three- and four-year-olds.
Other providers would be sought to lease council’s buildings from January 2025 and offer sessional kindergarten.
The report and meeting agenda are available on our website: 2023-08-14 – Meeting of Council (knox.vic.gov.au)
The meeting will be open to the public, with public question time available, and livestreamed on our website.
For more information on the service review, visit our Have Your Say page: Kindergarten Service Review | Knox City Council
