Anonymous wrote:We both work shift work.our friends stagger their schedules so one goes in late and the other one goes in early.
One friend hired a sitter for 2 hours every morning. Paying for childcare is part of parenting if you both work. Maybe see if a friend with kid at same school is interested in watching your kid ( for pay)

So they dont get hole until like 7pm? Thats part of what is impacting us.

We looked for a sitter, they are flaked after a month. No one wants these hours unless you are paying 40 hrs because it means they cant work many other jobs easily.

We already pay $400 for aftercare.

And we would happily pay another $400 for before care if it wasn’t so depressing, but Im sure they suffer from same problem of hard to hire people for those hours.

It would be simpler to just start school earlier. Even 30 minutes would be amazing.

I dont need childcare; my kid stays home fine by themselves even all day. I just need school to not actively thwart my work schedule.

920am?? That seems intentionally disruptive to working parents. Thats awful!

How much is before care? We only need 30 minutes of aftercare 3x a week and it's $400 a month for the county aftercare. Just another reason parents are broke.

My work is right on the FFX/Loudoun border so we have both issues. FFX starts at 9 and Loudoun starts at 7:10/7:40. The FFX employees are getting in around 10am, but many of the Loudoun employees have to leave at 2:30.

When I was in elementary school, the safety patrols would watch kids for 30 min before school starts. Kids would sit right outside their classrooms and play until school started.

Who decided that school should only be 7 hours? It's really only 5 hours of classroom time, with an hour for lunch/recess and an hour for electives.

We're in Fairfax County and did SAC (school-before care) for all elementary school years. School started at 9:20am.

Never left the kids home alone to walk to school.

So yes, you find before-care and drop them off early in the morning so you can be on time to work!

You can also quit your job and be at SAHM!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We use beforecare and if our kid finds it boring she deals with that.

Sure, but there are like 15 families in our 700 student elementary using before care — what are they all doing?

It probably depends on what kind of demographics your school has. At our school beforecare is always full. I don't think you could get a spot right now if you wanted. You might have a school with more SAHPs or where more people can afford a nanny or where more people do shift work that means they work different hours than school offers. IF you're a middle class, two income household, though, beforecare is the standard, at least for our school.

We both work shift work.our friends stagger their schedules so one goes in late and the other one goes in early.
One friend hired a sitter for 2 hours every morning. Paying for childcare is part of parenting if you both work. Maybe see if a friend with kid at same school is interested in watching your kid ( for pay)

Before and after school sitter.

Anonymous wrote:We use beforecare and if our kid finds it boring she deals with that.

Sure, but there are like 15 families in our 700 student elementary using before care — what are they all doing?

Anonymous wrote:I wish we had a bus — its almost 3/4 of a mile which is too far for a 2nd grader alone, and a bus would pickup much earlier; her classmates bus comes at 815!

So I guess we should have made sure we werent in walk zone of the school in retrospect — lesson for others

I wish we had a bus — its almost 3/4 of a mile which is too far for a 2nd grader alone, and a bus would pickup much earlier; her classmates bus comes at 815!

Beforecare. My kid doesn't want to go, but he needs to learn how to deal with things he doesn't want to do.

I've seen in mom groups where people try to hire someone to drive their kid to school in the morning.

We just do before and after care. If you don't have a nanny or family help or work flexibility, it's the only option.

You put your kid in before care and they suck it up.

Were you under the impression that school is supposed to provide adequate childcare for two parents working business day schedules? Because there is absolutely nothing about school that does this.

We use beforecare and if our kid finds it boring she deals with that.

Our local elementary schools start at 9am.

We tried before care, but it was almost empty and kid found it depressing. Too young and too far to walk to school on own (no bus).

How are working parents handling this? Do they get to work around 930/945? Have a crazy short commute so 845 drop off and get to work by 9? Hiring nannies or local grandparents for mornings?

My career has definitely suffered by being the morning drop off; somedays I dont get until 10 which hurts.