Parent Handbook

My name is Roula. I am the mother of 3 kids.

My elder one is in Grade 6, the middle one is in grade 3 and the third is in the JK program at Building Blocks, as well as in a regular school. She used to be in the preschool program here and we heard about the JK program from the parents of the previous year so we decided, after a lot of thinking, to keep her for the 5 day JK program. One of the major reasons we kept her here is we know that a strong foundation is most important in our kid’s life.

Neither of my other two children came to Building Blocks; I wish we could go back in time and hear about Building Blocks for them. We are glad that we were able to keep Layanne here and we will continue to keep her here for the SK program because we see the difference. With my other 2 kids we noticed that JK/SK was like babysitting, which is not what we were aiming for. Unfortunately, my other kids did not benefit from this. Now we see how weak the JK program in the public system is. My older 2 kids are suffering from the weak base. We can see how Layanne is sounding out and reading. We are so proud of Layanne as she can read words up to five letters, and simple sentences, thanks to the Building Blocks team. My older girls could not do this work until grades 2 and 3. It was more of a struggle because of the way it is taught in the public system.

Another reason for keeping her here is the small ratio compared to the other school where the ratio is 1 to 23, and she is in a split class as well.

She comes in every day excited about what she is going to learn. At Building Blocks, they have a warm, caring environment. You can feel and see the kids’ happiness when they go in there and when they come back home at the end of the day, all smiles.