Childcare options
Feb 14th 2004, 5:49 am
#1
Just Joined
Thread Starter
Joined: Dec 2003
Location: manchester, uk
Posts: 7
Childcare options
Following on from the posts on the school system, We hope to move to the us in Dec 2005 approx.
Our eldest will 5 so its kindergarten for her. is it really only half days, she will have been already been in the engglish school system for two years full time.
Our other daughter will be just short of her fourth birthday.
My question is what are the childcare (sorry daycare lol) options for us.
Mel
Our eldest will 5 so its kindergarten for her. is it really only half days, she will have been already been in the engglish school system for two years full time.
Our other daughter will be just short of her fourth birthday.
My question is what are the childcare (sorry daycare lol) options for us.
Mel
Feb 14th 2004, 9:53 am
#2
BE Enthusiast
Joined: Feb 2004
Location: AZ
Posts: 374
Hi,I too am with an nursing agency,planning to go in may, it seems most schools have provision for before and after school but talking to a friend whose already there there are lots of daycare establishments around who will bus your child to and from nursery. did you see yesterdays advice on immunisations?
Feb 14th 2004, 6:47 pm
#3
Winter hyphenator
Joined: Jul 2002
Location: Ann Arbor, MI
Posts: 660
Full-day Kindergarten is a coming thing in many places, so it may well be more readily available by the time you get here. If your daughter will have done two years of full-time school, I would seriously look at putting her in the first grade, not Kindergarten. Nearer the time, ask the school district you will be in for a copy of the "expected outcomes" for Kindergarten and 1st grade, and see where your daughter fits in.
As geordiegirl2 says, many schools offer before and after school care (for a fee of course), and most daycare centres will provide a school drop off/pick up service.
If you are in a university town and both working with some flexibility in your schedules, another option is to employ a student who is working through college to be a nanny. Then you will not need time off work when your children are off school sick, or for snow days or teacher training days etc, but you may need to cover a portion of some days for them to attend classes etc.
As geordiegirl2 says, many schools offer before and after school care (for a fee of course), and most daycare centres will provide a school drop off/pick up service.
If you are in a university town and both working with some flexibility in your schedules, another option is to employ a student who is working through college to be a nanny. Then you will not need time off work when your children are off school sick, or for snow days or teacher training days etc, but you may need to cover a portion of some days for them to attend classes etc.
Feb 15th 2004, 1:19 am
#4
.
Joined: Nov 2002
Location: Where bad things rarely happen in movies
Posts: 8,933
Somebody recently posted a reference to a website www.greatschools.net - I had a look at it yesterday and it has loads of good info on it, and links to your own school districts. Our kids are a bit young yet (2.5 and 12 months) but just doing a bit of research.
We looked at the pre-k daycare options, and found they varied massivley. Round our way the ones attached to the churches seemed to be the best and the cheapest - they seem to take registration once a year, with preference being given to church members, kids with siblings already attending, then to the 'general public'. At the really good ones, people were queing from 0400 on the morning of registration to get near the top of the queue!!
The only bit of advice I would offer would be to look at plenty, and look at them several times, unannounced - ie just turn up on the doorstep and ask to look round. We quickly narrowed the field when we saw 3 month-olds lying unattended in puddles of vomit, whole classes unattended while the teachers popped out for a fag break and the like. And this is in a 'nice' area, where the school fees aren't cheap!
We looked at the pre-k daycare options, and found they varied massivley. Round our way the ones attached to the churches seemed to be the best and the cheapest - they seem to take registration once a year, with preference being given to church members, kids with siblings already attending, then to the 'general public'. At the really good ones, people were queing from 0400 on the morning of registration to get near the top of the queue!!
The only bit of advice I would offer would be to look at plenty, and look at them several times, unannounced - ie just turn up on the doorstep and ask to look round. We quickly narrowed the field when we saw 3 month-olds lying unattended in puddles of vomit, whole classes unattended while the teachers popped out for a fag break and the like. And this is in a 'nice' area, where the school fees aren't cheap!
