What's your daycare snow, cold & other closure policy?
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Anonymous
| Just wondering if it's normal for a in-home daycare to close on snow days following schools closure announcement. Does center observes this too? Thanks! |
Anonymous
| Centers either tend to follow the school system in their locality, or the federal government. Home daycares are usually more lenient because at least some of the staff lives on premise. If your home provider doesn’t have an assistant, they shouldn’t close at all except if there are power problems. You may not want to drive there, though. |
Anonymous
The ones I know follow either the federal or school district. Curious, why don't you think they should close? They are private businesses that establish their own policies, etc. |
Anonymous
Because the reasons for closing is that it’s unsafe for the staff to get there. If it’s in your house and you have no extra staff, if I’m able to drive to the provider’s house there’s no justification for not providing care that has been paid for. |
Anonymous
| Not sure with the centers but In-home daycares established their own policy. Ours follows Fairfax county schools announcement. As it was explained to me, They want to make sure children is out of the street for any possible harm (Much more with younger kids & babies in an in home daycare). It's also about the higher risk of liability when or if a parent or a child slip in the daycare property. Most importantly, when road hazard is likely to happen and emergency occurs. Responders will have a hard time reaching the facility or in home daycare. It just put too much risk not only to safety of our children, the providers, & staffs. |
Anonymous
| My center in DC follows DCPS. |
Anonymous
| My center follows APS. |
Anonymous
| Ours follows the federal government. We’re on a 3 hour delay today. |
Anonymous
|
My home daycare never closes for weather (if you can get there, she's open).
My kids after care at school follows the county administrative offices. If public schools are closed, but the school administrative offices are open, they are open for the full day. |
Anonymous
| Our center typically follows OPM, but had a two hour delay today, instead of three hours. It's one of those questions I didn't think to ask when we were looking, and then got lucky with their policy. Following the local schools would be a complete deal-breaker for me in a daycare. |
Anonymous
We use an in-home. She follows FCPS and she has two staff. But she's also really reasonable about stuff. She closed early yesterday and opened late today, and did not close even though FCPS was closed. If her road is cleared, and the main road next to her house is clear, she opens generally. But she does need to ensure her staff can get there or she's out of ratio and that's illegal. She's still more flexible than a big center ever would be. My older child was there during the blizzard in 2016, and I think FCPS was closed 5 days in a row. She closed for the first 2 days, and then did delayed openings but was open the rest of the week. It was a huge life saver so I didn't burn a week of PTO for that storm. |
Anonymous
Then what are you going to do when your child is in the local schools? |
Anonymous
Enroll them in the aftercare that is almost always open for school snow days. |
Anonymous
I'm the first PP, and it's not just about aftercare, it's that having a school-aged child at home all day is vastly easier than having a younger one home. My first grader can do tons of stuff independently if she has to be home all day. My two year old, not so much. |
Anonymous
|
Mine follows OPM, thank goodness.
If you follow a school system, you are screwed. Closed and delayed constantly, often for nothing. Exhibit A: This morning. |