Anonymous wrote:How do 2 working parents deal with so many breaks ?

Lewinsville Montessori is the only preschool in McLean which is 12 months (and they have all-day coverage). They accept kids as young as 3 months. Their Montessori content mostly starts at age 2. They teach a pretty normal Montessori program before lunch. Lots of free play, including non-Montessori toys, in the afternoons. Most kids seem to leave to do K at whichever public school, but they do have a full K program.

That is a pretty typical schedule for a 9-month preschool. That schedule seems close to APS or FCPS. Camp options various places can cover most of the summer, but can be expensive. August is a huge gap at most preschools, with few or no camp options. Some churches have "vacation bible school" for a week in August which can help (after all at preschool age, it is mostly music, arts & crafts, and recess; there cannot be much theology).

Some larger companies have onsite daycare options. Some people have local relatives who can help out. Wealthy people might have an Au pair or other in-home help. Others take their "annual family vacation" during school gaps.

Personally, I really wish there would be at least some August coverage options. Even a half-day option would help a lot. We have not found many options in August.

You can also get an au pair in addition to preschool.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s normal for a preschool schedule for a 3 year old?

We have our child starting at MSM. I wanted to know if the calendar for the school year is typical of preschools and how to manage the coverage with full time work.

-2 weeks off for winter break, 1 week off for spring break, and 3 months off for summer break

-8 professional work days, 4 teacher conf. days, 7 federal holidays

It seems like a lot of days I’m going to have to take off work or find coverage not counting sick days.

We’ll plan on a camp for the summer and a trip during spring break, how do folks handle the rest of the days?

How do 2 working parents deal with so many breaks? Our daycare does a preschool curriculum starting from age 3. The preschool kids we know all have one parent staying home or grandparents who help.

They choose daycare. Kids benefit from consistency, so I wouldn't choose a place like this for a kid with 2 working parents unless I had a nanny home with an infant sibling or a teacher parent with the same schedule. I think that cobbling together childcare for 3 year olds isn't a great approach.

I work at a traditional preschool. We open after Labor Day and close at Memorial Day. We are off for two weeks in the winter and a one week spring break. Plus we have teacher workdays and are closed for all the federal holidays. Our students only attend 1/2 day and only the 5 year olds go 5 days a week. Everyone else goes two, three or four days per week.

We do have some families with one SAHP. But most of our families have two working parents. And most have a nanny or a grandparent that watches the child when they aren't at our preschool. We occasionally will get a child who attends daycare at a center on the days they don't come to the preschool and they also go to the daycare for the afternoon. I've also seen a few families where the parents don't have additional childcare but the parents don't work at the same time - for example, we had a nurse who worked two 12 hour weekend shifts and and one Monday - Friday evening shift and the other parent worked a typical 9-5 daytime shift. The nurse was getting 36 hours in a week. I remember another family had an even worse shift: the dad worked Sunday through Thursday nights from about 6:00pm to 4:00am. He would come home and sleep for a couple of hours. Then mom would leave the house about 8:00am and be home by 5:30pm so he could go to his night job. They had a toddler and preschooler at the time. I can't imagine how he functioned on only a couple of hours of sleep every night. Plus, the mom and dad never saw each other.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s normal for a preschool schedule for a 3 year old?

We have our child starting at MSM. I wanted to know if the calendar for the school year is typical of preschools and how to manage the coverage with full time work.

-2 weeks off for winter break, 1 week off for spring break, and 3 months off for summer break

-8 professional work days, 4 teacher conf. days, 7 federal holidays

It seems like a lot of days I’m going to have to take off work or find coverage not counting sick days.

We’ll plan on a camp for the summer and a trip during spring break, how do folks handle the rest of the days?

How do 2 working parents deal with so many breaks? Our daycare does a preschool curriculum starting from age 3. The preschool kids we know all have one parent staying home or grandparents who help.

I am keeping my kid at her (large, corporate) daycare facility, as they have a preschool calendar that works better for working parents. Our facility is also great about letting us know all of the closed days at the beginning of the year, so my husband and I block off/split up what we can and tap into grandparents well in advance.

Anonymous wrote:What’s normal for a preschool schedule for a 3 year old?

We have our child starting at MSM. I wanted to know if the calendar for the school year is typical of preschools and how to manage the coverage with full time work.

-2 weeks off for winter break, 1 week off for spring break, and 3 months off for summer break

-8 professional work days, 4 teacher conf. days, 7 federal holidays

It seems like a lot of days I’m going to have to take off work or find coverage not counting sick days.

We’ll plan on a camp for the summer and a trip during spring break, how do folks handle the rest of the days?

How do 2 working parents deal with so many breaks? Our daycare does a preschool curriculum starting from age 3. The preschool kids we know all have one parent staying home or grandparents who help.

Completely normal.

Many family daycares have a preschool teacher. They only close for the holidays and 2 week vacation

We did daycare for this reason. We don’t have any family help.

This is normal for a 3s and 4s that are part of an elementary school. Im keeping my kid at her daycare which is 18m and up because they are open all the days except federal holidays and don't close for any breaks or summer.

Yes, this is normal for a preschool that is part of an elementary school, not a daycare.

Looks totally normal. And make sure to factor in SO MANY SICK DAYS. Our 3's class had strep, flu, norovirus, covid this year. It felt never-ending but definitely better to expect it than not.

It's a tricky stage in life, for sure. If either of your jobs have back-up care, look into it. Plan to take off one of the weeks over the holidays, if you can. One of us worked from home during the random professional days or conference days. We had most of the federal holidays off. We also made friends in the class and swapped kids a couple of days.

Not only is that a typical preschool (not daycare) schedule, but it's also the schedule you should expect for elementary school.

What’s normal for a preschool schedule for a 3 year old?

We have our child starting at MSM. I wanted to know if the calendar for the school year is typical of preschools and how to manage the coverage with full time work.

-2 weeks off for winter break, 1 week off for spring break, and 3 months off for summer break

-8 professional work days, 4 teacher conf. days, 7 federal holidays

It seems like a lot of days I’m going to have to take off work or find coverage not counting sick days.

We’ll plan on a camp for the summer and a trip during spring break, how do folks handle the rest of the days?