Will part day preschools open in the fall?

[Anonymous]

I've seen lots of talk about daycare and school, but what about part day preschools? My DS is 4 and I'd really like him to go to prek prior to kindergarten.

[Anonymous]

I work at a part day preschool and we are hoping to open in the fall. With a lot of changes.

There will be limited spaces (ie 8 kids to a classroom) and possibly abbreviated hours. Carline pickup and drop offs instead of parents walking them in and out of the building. No dress up clothes and playdoh, things that are hard to disinfect. It will be different, but should still be beneficial to the students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work at a part day preschool and we are hoping to open in the fall. With a lot of changes.

There will be limited spaces (ie 8 kids to a classroom) and possibly abbreviated hours. Carline pickup and drop offs instead of parents walking them in and out of the building. No dress up clothes and playdoh, things that are hard to disinfect. It will be different, but should still be beneficial to the students.

Honest question, and I don’t mean to be snarky, but can you tell me how you think this is beneficial to a preschooler? We’ve already decided to have a nanny for our kids but are thinking about if we want to send our 2.5 year old to part time preschool. The restrictions make it sound like a very different experience than what we wanted for him, and it’s not a necessity so it doesn’t seem worth the risk. But I’d love to hear perspectives I’m not thinking about.

[Anonymous]

Ours is splitting into two sessions, morning/afternoon, so that class sizes can be half. (This is assuming the governor says they can open, I guess). It's montessori, so they will likely just add "wipe your materials with a wipe before you put them away" to the instructions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've seen lots of talk about daycare and school, but what about part day preschools? My DS is 4 and I'd really like him to go to prek prior to kindergarten.

Then he should be in full day preK to get used to longer day. PT will most likely not be available as there could be restrictions of 10 and the school will take full time kids to make necessary funds to pay bills.

[Anonymous]

What is the indoor occupancy limit for Phase 2 or 3? I think if we’re past phase 1, they’ll open; my children go to a half day (morning) church preschool and I believe it is licensed like a day care. The class sizes are over 10 for all but the toddler and 2 year old classes. If we’re still in phase 1 and only allowed to have gatherings of 10 or less they will probably hold off.

[Anonymous]

No one knows. And if anyone claims to know, they are lying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've seen lots of talk about daycare and school, but what about part day preschools? My DS is 4 and I'd really like him to go to prek prior to kindergarten.

Then he should be in full day preK to get used to longer day. PT will most likely not be available as there could be restrictions of 10 and the school will take full time kids to make necessary funds to pay bills.

OK but I'm talking about part day morning only preschool. This preschool does not have any FT slots. And if they do open with modifications, should I send my kid when we don't need it for childcare? I wouldn't worry about it if it wasn't the year before kindergarten. We're moving and I'm debating if I sound register at a new school.

[Anonymous]

Most of those places aren't going to be able financially to stay open operating with the same employee costs, but half the kids. I wouldn't plan on it. I know one small church based program that is closing and another community based program that has said it can make it through the first 6 weeks, but not past that.

[Anonymous]

OP, you're talking about preschool for enrichment and socialization, not childcare, correct? I think it will be an uphill battle for private preschool programs to stay afloat for the next year. We had been planning to send our toddler part time, but have decided against it. I certainly understand the desire for socialization, especially for a child entering kindergarten soon. Perhaps you could form a small cohort with a couple other kids in the neighborhood with whom you would feel safe, for playdates?

[Anonymous]

Our part-time church preschool is planning to open. Many of these schools are able to operate on lower than usual budgets because they don't pay rent for building space. I wouldn't assume they're all going under.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most of those places aren't going to be able financially to stay open operating with the same employee costs, but half the kids. I wouldn't plan on it. I know one small church based program that is closing and another community based program that has said it can make it through the first 6 weeks, but not past that.

I work at a part time pre-school and we are in serious trouble. We've already been relying on fundraising to operate in the black for the last couple of years so I could see this absolutely bankrupting us, which is a shame. We've been in our community for years. We have parents (and a few grandparents) who attended our preschool as children. They no longer live in the immediate community but they make the drive to send their children (families coming from 45 minutes away to attend a 3 hour, 3 day a week preschool) and it would just be heartbreaking to see us close.

Our children are almost 100% from UMC families. The children where both parents work outside the home (or even telework) often have a nanny. The parents are enrolling their children in our school for socialization. Every once in awhile, we get a child who goes to a full time daycare and they bring him/her to us for 3 hours 3 days a week to get an old fashioned nature and play based preschool experience.

We have been coming up with different options for the fall. Our children attend 3 hours a day and get a snack. The children don't have to be potty trained, so we're often changing diapers for our 3 year olds. We're talking of reducing the hours to between 2 and 2 1/2 hours and eliminating snack. We'd go down to 8 children per class (we have anywhere from 12 to 15 depending on the age group.) Instead of having 4 and 5 day options for the oldest students, maybe we would do more classes but have everyone only attend only 2 or 3 days a week - so we could still accommodate 15 children in a week, just 7 would attend 2 days and 8 would attend 3 instead of 15 every day. We would probably also eliminate a class for our youngest students. So we would only serve 4 and 5 year olds and not 3 year olds. We have a slightly shorter year than public school but otherwise, follow their calendar. We start right after Labor Day and today would have been our last day of school. Another option, depending on how things shake out, we might start earlier in Aug but take a really long break starting right after Thanksgiving and not start up again until February. We already spend a great deal of time outside, so if we're not in school in December and January we might be able to spend all of our 2 hours outside.

[Anonymous]

I’m feeling confident that my kids’ school - The Harbor School - will be open in the Fall. They are moving to a new space in Potomac with large classrooms and there around only around 8-10 kids per class, so they’ll be able to socially distance, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m feeling confident that my kids’ school - The Harbor School - will be open in the Fall. They are moving to a new space in Potomac with large classrooms and there around only around 8-10 kids per class, so they’ll be able to socially distance, etc.

That sounds like an ideal situation. I’m guessing the tuition is high but totally worth it these days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m feeling confident that my kids’ school - The Harbor School - will be open in the Fall. They are moving to a new space in Potomac with large classrooms and there around only around 8-10 kids per class, so they’ll be able to socially distance, etc.

That sounds like an ideal situation. I’m guessing the tuition is high but totally worth it these days.

Ours is doing the same thing. Also a place with high tuition.