School districts can start preparing their 2024/25 and 2025/26 capital plans for child care using the expanded Capital Asset Planning System (CAPS) beginning April 8. Submissions for 2024/25 will be accepted until May 15, and submissions for 2025/26 will close in alignment with the K-12 capital planning cycle, available in the Capital Planning instructions.
Please note, the CAPS system will be conducting maintenance on Tuesday, April 2, and will reopen Wednesday, April 3, to allow school districts to start creating new project requests and/or capital plans.
To help ensure fair and equitable access to capital funding, school district requests will be considered at the same time as other applications to the New Spaces Fund. For more information, refer to the 2024/25 Capital Plan Instructions, which will be updated and posted to the Capital Planning web page the week of April 2.
This change in process for school districts supports better alignment with current school district processes and makes it easier to plan for and create more child care spaces on school grounds for families. It will also help the ministry consider school district child care projects alongside other education projects.
All other eligible public sector applicants can apply to the ChildCareBC New Spaces Fund through the existing application process starting in spring 2024.