Working Mom - New to DaycareBear

[nikosmum]

Good Morning All!

My reason for registering on this site is because I seem to be having a difficult time finding a daycare provider who can assist me in taking my child to school for the afternoon and picking him up after school.

I have contacted several daycares who, according to this site have room, and over the last 3 weeks, I have not heard from any of them.

I was referred to this site by friends who claim its amazing. But so far my experience has not been a very good or welcoming one.

My son starts JK in the fall and the schools in our area are mornings or afternoons. He's been accepted in the afternoons. Now trying to find a daycare who can take him to that specific school is proving to be a much harder task than expected!

I'm a working mom. I don't have a choice but to work. I do not have the luxury of staying home. If I could, I would in a heart beat!

If anyone can assist me - I would be forever in your debt! I'm in Burlington ON, in the Orchard area (if you're familiar with it at all).

*just trying to give my baby the best* mommy.

[mimi]

perhaps if you give the name of the school and drop off/pick up schedule and your hours then I am sure some one will be able to help you. It is often difficult for a provider to drop/pick up children from school as of course they must take all their d/c children. Good luck with your search

[playfelt]

It could also depend on what you said in your ad. I only take children not in school because I prefer not to take the babies out in rain, sleet, snowstorms to meet school buses. Also many parents of kindergarten children do not want to pay for a full time space believing that their child is in school for half the day. The reality is that your child is in school for 2 1/2 hours about the same as the toddlers at the daycare that are napping. So make sure you expect to pay for the full service you are getting since your caregiver is also working before and after your child's school time to devote travel time to and from school. Loss of income is one of the reasons many caregivers won't take school age children since we are limited to 5 children.

Also many parents have their child on a waiting list for a school based daycare space which means if they get a space before Sept or even just after they will want to take it for the convenience. The result is the caregiver had stopped advertising to fill their space and now come Sept they have very few children to choose from. One of the reasons you are not hearing back from caregivers as many put accepting school age children down low on their list and will only do it later in the summer if they think they have missed out on the chance to fill their spaces with a fulltime child. Therefore it might just be too early to start looking for a September placement. Many caregivers may not know yet about spaces either as parents haven't let them know if they are staying or going since they only need to give 2-3 weeks notice.

Some schools have a list in the office of caregivers and you might try those since even if they don't have a space they may know a fellow caregiver that does. The current kindergarten teacher will be aware of which children are met by caregivers and may be able to give you names or at least take your name to be passed on. If you have the chance to take a day and stand at the school during drop off or pickup you will be able to spot the provider as the one with 5 children in tow pretty much all the same age. Just ask as most will answer helpfully or point out another person to you that might be able to help.

If you have a daycare centre in your area, or licensed agency those would be other places to register. Also visiting the early years centre in your area - some are open some saturdays there are often ads left on the bulletin boards or some have a book for listing information.

The half day care is a problem for sure. If your school is moving to full day care the following year that may also be what is making caregivers shy away in the sense that they know they are filling the space for only one year as they won't be able to take the child once they are only before/after school so are therefore holding out for a family now that will be staying with them more longterm.

[Inspired by Reggio]

I am so sorry you are having a challenging time - I did not realize there were still schools in Ontario doing the half day thing - they were suppose to wean that option out by last school year in preparation for the full day everyday rolling out the options is now suppose to be full day only ... I would be complaining to your MPP and your school board as to why the full day is not available to you - because even if there is not the full day everyday the 'alternating' days is suppose to be the next option at the moment?

IME if you are stuck with 1/2 day as the only option - you might have better luck if you ask the school if he could switch to mornings as more providers would be able to work around the 9-11:30 drop off and pick up ... personally even if I was advertizing for a space I could not take a child to school for afternoons cause the rest of my group is napping from 12:30 - 3 and it would not be fair to them

I know that I have clients in care in the past who have opted not to enroll in JK or SK due to the half day thing - they were just not able to find anyone willing to help and I could not help them and well kindergarten is not 'compulsory' to attend and kids in 'daycare' tend to get the same exposure and experiences getting ready for 'social skills' needed to cope in a school setting ... so it was just easier to stay out and for me to focus on offering them a home schooled option of the kindergarten program so that when they left my program for school full time in Grade 1 they had mastered everything that was on the 'checklist' for completion of kindergarten.... are there childcare centres in Burlington that offer this option for working parents?

[Momof4]

Oh, sorry you aren't getting any responses. I don't live in your city but I can't do school runs with my daycare because the thought of bundling them all up and making that run back and forth twice a day, especially in winter is out of the question. However, if you find someone who has to do it for their own child anyway that would be different. I would be checking at your school to see how you can get the word out to anyone interested in helping you as playfelt mentioned. Good luck.

[playfelt]

Both of the boys leaviang my daycare this summer will be half day school. The one school offers care for the other half of the day and the second school doesn't claiming there was not enough demand so are only offering after school in the afternoon along with the older kids in the school. Think it was pushed back to 2013 for the final rollout of full day. That seems to be the date being mentioned around here.

[Play and Learn]

Just a tid-bit on the full-day learning:

The government is no longer paying for it, so the school boards have to fork out money to put them all in place. Which is a ton of money! So in the Ottawa and Eastern School boards, they have managed to put full-day learning into the schools that are in the lower income areas. Then once they start making money from those, they'll slowly put them in the rest of the schools.

[Inspired by Reggio]

... Think it was pushed back to 2013 for the final rollout of full day. That seems to be the date being mentioned around here.

Ah -wonder if it is different depending on the Region and the Boards with those regions?

I know I attended a public meeting about the transition and our Boards were told as of 2012 they could only continue to offer half days at schools that had NO children being bussed to them and where the demand for half day was 'greater' than that for the full day alternating options ... so the schools who do not have funding for New full day everyday have at least switched over to all being the full day alternating verses the half days .... this saves on busing costs and a few other shared space issues for boards as well not to mention it is easier for working parents too ... there are a few schools that offer BOTH the full day alternating option and the half day mornings because there was enough of a demand for both but the half day is rare here now!

[Inspired by Reggio]

Just a tid-bit on the full-day learning:

The government is no longer paying for it, so the school boards have to fork out money to put them all in place. Which is a ton of money! So in the Ottawa and Eastern School boards, they have managed to put full-day learning into the schools that are in the lower income areas. Then once they start making money from those, they'll slowly put them in the rest of the schools.

Hmmm - had not heard this? Last I had heard from the Ontario Budget in the news, in all my professional association literature and so forth is that the Liberals have taken a hard line on continuing to fund the Full day EVERY Day initiative and looking for other ways to balance the budget instead ... the plan has ALWAYS been to roll it out slowly - although it is rolling out slower' than the initial projectin with full implementation in every school across Ontario not being until 2015.

The reason being is that they needed time in the pilot schools to work out the KINKS before having it roll out in every school across Ontario - time to train the teachers on the concept of working an a 'team' with a partner that is to be viewed as equal in the room, time to train them on the new curriculum, as well as they need time for CENTRES to adjust to the loss of staff as RECE leave centres to go to school boards, as 4-5 year children leave centres to go to all day early learning ... change is hard enough but change of this size and magnitude definitely takes TIME that's for sure

My understanding is that schools chosen to get it first were based on the SPACE and NEED for sure so low income areas in some regions might have gotten it first for sure - however I know in my home town the RICHER neighborhoods got it first because their schools had the space and the demand from working clients - so it varies vastly between regions. Our school boards already have the lists posted on them of which schools will get it next for 2012, than 2013, 2014 and which ones have to wait until 2015 as some of them have to be 'retrofitted' to account for basically 'twice' the enrollment.

However just to clarify- I was not talking about the full day EVERY day program but more so that the school boards in our region have in addition to this pending change been told they cannot offer 'half day everyday option' anymore which use to be the 'norm' in most schools but were to switch to full day alternating days program to get everyone use' to the new program that will be coming into effect ... so the kids in our Catholic schools go Monday / Wednesday and alternating Fridays ALL day or they are Tuesday / Thursday and alternating Fridays which works AWESOME for arranging childcare around for parents and than we have the Public school board which for some reason thinks a rotating 10 day schedule is the bees knees so those kids are either labelled odds or evens and they go one week Monday / Wednesday / Friday and next week Tuesday / Thursday and than when a PD happens it screws up the rhythm ... its horrible system and IMO was designed to make support for the full day everyday more appealing to ALL parents cause even the stay at home moms I know HATE the alternating day schedule cause they cannot book any extra curricular lessons or anything for their kids cause their days are never the same

[Crayola kiddies]

We have full day here and personally I am not a cheerleader of it ..... Kids have to be in school full time for 12 years not including post secondary education but they only get to be a kid for 3.75 -4.5 years why tack two more years on it? ..... Depending on when birthday falls the child could be off to school at 3.75 yrs old ( like my child) I don't think full day jk is necessary. Just my nickel !