Our daycare has not quite returned to the hours it had before the pandemic, but close. Maybe a half hour shorter on either end. Judging by my kids' classes and the sign-in sheets, there doesn't seem to be demand for longer hours than that.
They're still using the pandemic as an excuse to not return to serving a hot lunch however. Not something I'd leave over but if I were a prospective new parent it might be enough to send me elsewhere. I can't even tell what the issue is exactly, we've encouraged the director to poll the parents over whether they'd be willing to pay more. |
That makes no sense and would really piss me off. How does serving a hot lunch effect risk of Covid at all? |
Yeah it’s definitely being used as an excuse more than anything else. From comments I get the sense they find it easier for parents to send food (the lunches were previously brought in by a caterer but still involves some legwork to get them distributed/on the table). Plus the pandemic has been hard for the financially. They’re not really admitting that this is a deciding factor but it is why we are trying to get them to see if parents would pay more. |
Right. There is no back up care for sick kids. Parents provide that care. Nobody wants your kids germs! That’s why you have generous sick leave policies or one parent stays home. We’re headed into a big backlash over the professional gains of women. There’s going to be more pressure in favor of staying home in the next decade. |
There should be more generous and flexible sick leave policies, but there's also some nuance missing from this discussion. There is a football field worth of difference between sending a child who is running around happily, but happens to have a slight runny nose or lingering light cough from a cold, and sending a lethargic, feverish kid in the throes of a bad virus. And finally, dads should be willing to take the sick day and watch the kid as often as moms, if not more. My DH took the bulk of the sick days the first year our DD was in daycare (so, a lot of illnesses) so that I could rebuild my career after returning to work. |
Well the reason why you see lethargic and feverish kids in daycare is because of a lack of paid leave OR unrealistic corporate expectations. The vast majority of parents aren’t sending kids in that way for fun. |
Most U.S. workers do not have generous sick leave policies, and even the "generous" sick leave policies were established in a time when we weren't quarantining healthy kids for 5-14 days for simply having been EXPOSED to a virus. But keeping telling parents that one should be staying home, just don't be surprised when the services you are used to depending on no longer have enough workers to function. |
No other part of the country has policies like the DC area. I can only imagine. I’m well aware we lack adequate paid sick leave. |
PP: totally agree; I'm just addressing the breathless "how dare you send a kid with ANY symptoms!" crowd. |
Oh yeah that’s unrealistic. Because I spend too much time on here, I can remember a 20+ page thread about whether ES children with cold symptoms should attend school. It wa extremely vicious. Right before the pandemic too. Irony. |
Yes, there are staffing issues for 2+ years in child care. The child care field is in crisis, so many workers have left, they can do target or doordash and make similar money. Or be a para at the schools and get health benefits. Many centers don’t have all their classrooms open because they don’t have the staff to work in them. Dozens of local programs have closed permanently. |
I'm a full time employee at a hospital in Massachusetts. A single mother who my son goes to daycare 5 days a week. It is now December 2022 COVID is over!!! Daycares should not be closing every day of the year. My paid time has gone completely down the drain from calling out of work for non sense. We are paying for child care because parents are reliant on these daycares to take care of our children while we are at work. On top of that we have to pay the daycare regardless if they take days off and or if our child is not attending that day. This is completely unfair to parents who are trying to attend work to make a living, meanwhile these daycares are collecting their paychecks every week while they are home having days off. Also having to find someone to watch your child while daycare is closed and also paying that person for the day. The economy is not right for this to be happening. Families cannot afford to be paying for daycare and a backup person. THIS NEEDS TO STOP!!!! It is imperative that changes need to be made about these strict policies that these daycares have. Daycares are clearly taking advantage of families during these past three years. |
What daycares are closing for covid anymore? Even Montgomery County stopped doing that months ago. You need to switch providers. |
+1 You are in Massachusetts and your health department and daycare licensing may have completely different rules than down here. Montgomery county was one of the strictest in terms of Covid closures. Technically, daycares are still supposed to report any Covid illnesses to the health department, and the health department may advise daycare classrooms to shut down, or entire schools to shut down, but I think this has gone by the wayside. If your state and local jurisdiction has dropped Covid mandated closures but your daycare is keeping them then you should be looking for a different daycare. I understand your struggles, but daycares weren’t taking advantage. They still had to charge because they still had to maintain their spaces and pay their employees. Otherwise they would have to shut down and let people go and you would be out of a daycare permanently. Believe me when I say that nobody working in Daycare, whether owners, directors, or employees are living high on the hog. |
MoCo DHHS never ordered child care providers or preschools to close. Once MSDE allowed them to reopen a couple months into the pandemic, all subsequent closures were entirely at the discretion of the provider. |