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Half-day Kindergarten and 2 Working Parent Households
How do you do it, especially if the School District only offers transportation one way (no mid-day buses)? This is something that we will have to deal with, more so if we decide to leave SF for Canon-Mac (see post below - biting the bullet).
Right now we use a daycare in the SF school district and SF does to and from transportation for half day kindergarten. However, in my research of Canon-Mac (just started) they only offer transportation one way - no midday. We already figured that we would have to change daycares if we decide to move once our oldest starts kindergarten (he is 3.5 yrs old now, so this is something that we will have to deal with soon).
I know we are making this out to be bigger than it is - we aren't the only 2 parent working household out there but it just seems like a pain.
Re: Half-day Kindergarten and 2 Working Parent Households
My BFF lives in a SD that only offers half day kindie with one way transportation. (Which I think is totally sucky, by the way!) Anyway, they had to find a daycare that also offered transportation. So the daycare had a little bus or van for the kids and they'd transport them either to/from school depending on am/pm kindy.
Our old daycare used to do transportation--so definitely look into that as an option. Our new daycare (different area) does not.
Right now both DH and I are close enough to work/home/school/daycare that we're just planning on one of us doing the mid-day run on our lunch break. If we're lucky we'll find another parent at the daycare to split the runs with. :-)
We live in one of those districts. We're planning to do the daycare bus thing (unless I can convince my father to shuttle her)! I think it's $10 a day for the daycare shuttle (in addition to the cost of daycare).
This is the only solution I could think of.
We're lucky enough that the school we're sending DS #1 to has full day Kindergarten, but I know issues like the one you are mentioning is part of the reason our school has two full-day K classes - and both classes have 28 and 29 kids in it. I'm curious to see how the numbers change in 1st grade (we're going to a parochial school, so there is tuition to pay). Also, our school offers after-school care.
Our issue was that our local elementary school, while they offered all-day Kindie, does not have any daycares around it, so we had no after-school care. And no one (current daycare or our school district) would bus him to the daycare.
You definitely have to be creative when you're a dual-income family!
My three sons!
Yeah, I really don't understand the point of half-day kindergarten. I could see maybe back when we were kids and not as many kids were going to daycare, but really, most of the people who I know who have kids have them in daycare, or at least a preschool program of some sort. So half-day kindy seems like a step backward!
Jake - 1.15.08
Liam - 5.17.11
I totally agree! I'm hoping by the time DD is ready for kindergarten our district will have changed to full day. Anyone know how I propose that they make the switch?
I've heard that one of the big reasons why some schools keep 1/2 day kindergarten is due to the parents not wanting full day. This doesn't really make sense to me, so I am happy to currently be in a district with full day!
I can only assume it is due to districts with a higher rate of a stay at home parent. I am sure if my kid only went to a 3 day a week, 3 hour preschool program a full day of K would seem like a big jump too. I just wish we had the option of full day! And not just financially. I really think 3 hours isn't enough for Eleni.
Full day/half day kindergarten is also a money thing. I know that when the budgets were cut, full day kindy programs were some of the first things to go.
A lot of districts have cut full-day kindergarten do to budget issues. Twice as many kids, half as many teachers.
I have a friend in a half-day district but there is a pre and after-care program run by someone else that operates out of the school. I know it isn't a cheap option though.
We do parochial school with full day kindergarten & after school care. We also would have had to switch daycares to bus to half day or find someone to pick her up every day. There were a few kids that went to her school solely b/c it was full day & are now going to the public school. I agree that after 5 yrs of day care, a half day of instruction would get boring really quick.
I always thought the idea behind half day kindergarten was cost. Too many kids and not enough space or $$ for teachers?
How time flies! Caileigh (9), Keira (6) & Eamon (3)