Teachers and community leaders at Launching Place Kinder claimed changes made by senior management staff has severely impacted the quality of the kindergarten.
Launching Place Kinder Parent Support Group (PSG) president Emily Arnold said senior staff of the early years manager (EYM) organisation Yarra Ranges Kinders (YRK) had destroyed the service offered by Launching Place Kinder.
“There’s no real support for the teaching staff, there’s no support for families, the teachers feel completely undervalued and disrespected,” Ms Arnold said.
YRK is an Early Years Manager (EYM), an organisation which runs multiple kinders and centralises management. It manages 22 kinders in the Yarra Ranges.
Ms Arnold was critical of YRK’s focus on prioritising profits over the needs of teaching staff, parents and ultimately, children.
“We’ve gone from the standard three five-hour sessions to two seven-and-a-half sessions per week, and this was dropped on us last year with no consultation.”
This was just one example of the many “heavy-handed” decisions made by YRK without consulting teaching staff and parents.
Ms Arnold said YRK moved to combine three-year-old and four-year-old kinder, extend the hours-per-day from five to seven-and-a-half and change timetables without consulting parents and teaching staff
“Ultimately, every decision YRK makes regarding sessions and staffing for our children is not for the benefit of our children. It is based on saving money for the organisation because they have been hamstrung by the government with fee-free kinder.”
Ms Arnold said teachers at Launching Place Kinder were forced to turn to parents to raise money themselves for essential purchases.
“The kinders individually get a minimalist budget to try and provide these really great quality programs for the children.
“They have to access parent funding, fundraising through gold coin donation, dress-up days and chocolate drives and things like that.”
In one case, YRK management asked Launching Place Kinder to fundraise $5000 towards an upgrade to an outdoor area – over half of the total cost of $9000 for the project.
The project would reportedly make greater use of the space, ensure comfort in all weather conditions, and potentially open opportunities for increased program capacity in the future.
But Ms Arnold said the main purpose of the project was to increase the program capacity, which would put teachers under more stress and compromise child safety.
“At the end of the day, our licensing would increase from 27 children to 33, which having 33 children on site at any given time, no matter how many staff you have, is increasing issues with child safety and supervision.”
But Launching Place isn’t the only kinder to have spoken out against YRK.
Lancaster Preschool in Mooroolbark has started a petition demanding YRK’s interim chief executive officer, Juliette Hammond to resign after similar changes were made.
The petition has 222 signatures at the time of publication.
Ms Arnold said YRK has been “hamstrung” by the State Government’s introduction of fee-free kinder as it removed a major source of income for kinders.
“They’re almost running at a corporate-looking structure, rather than keeping the focus on the centres and trying to minimise those management and administration costs.”
YRK recorded an operating deficit of over $850,000 in its 2024 annual report and Ms Arnold said it pointed to a larger, structural issue with how EYMs work.
“I believe it’s not necessarily profit gauging. I think it’s more drawing the deficit back,” she said.
“But I don’t believe that they’re dealing with it or managing it in a way that’s actually true to the core of a community-run preschool.”
In the end, the situation at YRK represented a structural failure on a larger level.
“I don’t think that just getting rid of the CEO and putting in someone new would make a difference… the whole culture of the organisation really needs to be addressed at its core.”
