Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our APS school has a Y and a TKD bus. If you don't know the programs at your school, call the office. I'm sure they can help.

Our extended day lead told us the Y bus was full this year at our school. If they do the lottery again next year I hope the make the registration period shorter.
People who don't get in need all the lead time they can get to find alternate options.

If there are that many kids interested in the Y, they will probably add another bus or a bigger bus. I would ask the Y.

At our school the principal and the ED director are telling totally separate stories. ED says they can't take on more kids because there is no additional space for them. Principal says they can have as many classrooms and bigger rooms (gym, cafeteria, etc) as they need to accommodate all kids.

My guess is it partly comes down to the ability to hire staff, but it's fascinating to hear two completely different explanations for the waitlist.

I heard APS really dropped the ball on getting enrollment info out to incoming parents. Apparently at our school we had 1/3 of the normal kinder sign ups. I would be interested to see what it is at other schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our APS school has a Y and a TKD bus. If you don't know the programs at your school, call the office. I'm sure they can help.

Our extended day lead told us the Y bus was full this year at our school. If they do the lottery again next year I hope the make the registration period shorter.
People who don't get in need all the lead time they can get to find alternate options.

Or look at the alternative and see if there is penalty for pulling out. If not, sign up for the alternative and then pull out if there is not penalty or if the penalty is reasonably small.

Anonymous wrote:Our APS school has a Y and a TKD bus. If you don't know the programs at your school, call the office. I'm sure they can help.

Our extended day lead told us the Y bus was full this year at our school. If they do the lottery again next year I hope the make the registration period shorter.
People who don't get in need all the lead time they can get to find alternate options.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will probably get flamed for this, but I also think that extended day should give priority to the youngest kids (K, 1 and 2). So I'd argue those should be automatically given spots, and then with the older kids let them have the extra spots, if there are any, or if they have a younger sibling.

Seems much more like an 8-10 year old would be fine taking a van to an off-site location like the YMCA for an hour or two than a 5-7 year old would be.

What about older kids who wouldn't do as well with that as younger kids (e.g., kids with anxiety of certain special needs)? And what about low-income parents who can get subsidized extended day through APS but couldn't afford an outside provider?

This is the concern I had. Some of these families pay a little as $1. You are not getting $1 childcare anywhere else. Surprisingly it looks like my son's school won't have a lottery unless more than 20 kids signed up on the last day. Wish they would post the final counts

Our APS school has a Y and a TKD bus. If you don't know the programs at your school, call the office. I'm sure they can help.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought McK would have the biggest waitlist but, it's actually Ashlawn by about 10.

What are these 50 families going to do? Glebe is the other. So if you triangulate, Ballston Quarter should open an extended day center. or maybe everybody should take their kids the library...parents could take turns being the adult in charge...

other options...they just show up to extended day anyway and force APS to deal with it.

Extended Day is not an entitlement. It is heavily used by upper middle class families in Arlington (2/3 of extended day participants are at the top of the pay scale. https://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/arlington/Board.nsf/files/BAR4K96379EB/$file/20-26%20Extended%20Day%20Scale.pdf


While it works for some lower income students- many of those need other child care arrangements b/c their parents work hours don't correspond with extended day (e.g. shift type work starts at 6 or 7- extended day doesn't open until 7.)

I think extended day is a good program- but there are other child care options as well, and extended day space should not be prioritized beyond how much it already is.

I think this is the main issue though. I only know of two childcare options other than extended day for elementary age kids. The FCPS mentioned 5 -- if there were that many in Arlington, I don't think that there would be such a demand for extended day and there wouldn't be any outrage at being cut out. Right now the primary alternative to extended day for most parents is getting a nanny to meet your kid at the bus. If there were other options, this wouldn't be an issue.

PP from FCPS here There are a lot more then 5, that is just what I see at my ES. We are at one of the smaller ES and I am pretty sure that the larger ES have far more then 5 pick ups.

I would call around to the various programs in your area, there might be more then you know of. I had no clue about a good number of the offerings, outside the martial arts and Y options, because I was not involved in gymnastics or ballet or other programs but those options were there. We started talking to our neighbors looking for different options for snow days and planned days off. Then we found a ton of choices. So there might be more then you know of. Surely you have kindercare and similar programs in your area, have you called them? The martial art studios tend to have a good mix of fun stuff and physical activity because the kids take lessons. The gymnastics program in our area, Gymnastics America, has more of a free play with bounce houses, a "ninja warrior course" and foam pit that the kids can play in.

And maybe if people are reaching out, there will be more places that open up.

It also sounds like there is not the same demand as at most FCPS, I don't know if APS has a larger SACC program or not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought McK would have the biggest waitlist but, it's actually Ashlawn by about 10.

What are these 50 families going to do? Glebe is the other. So if you triangulate, Ballston Quarter should open an extended day center. or maybe everybody should take their kids the library...parents could take turns being the adult in charge...

other options...they just show up to extended day anyway and force APS to deal with it.

Extended Day is not an entitlement. It is heavily used by upper middle class families in Arlington (2/3 of extended day participants are at the top of the pay scale. https://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/arlington/Board.nsf/files/BAR4K96379EB/$file/20-26%20Extended%20Day%20Scale.pdf


While it works for some lower income students- many of those need other child care arrangements b/c their parents work hours don't correspond with extended day (e.g. shift type work starts at 6 or 7- extended day doesn't open until 7.)

I think extended day is a good program- but there are other child care options as well, and extended day space should not be prioritized beyond how much it already is.

I think this is the main issue though. I only know of two childcare options other than extended day for elementary age kids. The FCPS mentioned 5 -- if there were that many in Arlington, I don't think that there would be such a demand for extended day and there wouldn't be any outrage at being cut out. Right now the primary alternative to extended day for most parents is getting a nanny to meet your kid at the bus. If there were other options, this wouldn't be an issue.

This is sort of chicken and egg. There are a few options- YMCA, and a few others. There are also some places that were interested, but didn't find the demand. e.g. the Merit School used to offer school age child care, but they discontinued it due to low enrollment.

So a question for parents in APS: what are the other options you've used when you didn't get into extended day? It sounds very much like FCPS has lots of options. Are these the same in APS?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought McK would have the biggest waitlist but, it's actually Ashlawn by about 10.

What are these 50 families going to do? Glebe is the other. So if you triangulate, Ballston Quarter should open an extended day center. or maybe everybody should take their kids the library...parents could take turns being the adult in charge...

other options...they just show up to extended day anyway and force APS to deal with it.

Extended Day is not an entitlement. It is heavily used by upper middle class families in Arlington (2/3 of extended day participants are at the top of the pay scale. https://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/arlington/Board.nsf/files/BAR4K96379EB/$file/20-26%20Extended%20Day%20Scale.pdf


While it works for some lower income students- many of those need other child care arrangements b/c their parents work hours don't correspond with extended day (e.g. shift type work starts at 6 or 7- extended day doesn't open until 7.)

I think extended day is a good program- but there are other child care options as well, and extended day space should not be prioritized beyond how much it already is.

I think this is the main issue though. I only know of two childcare options other than extended day for elementary age kids. The FCPS mentioned 5 -- if there were that many in Arlington, I don't think that there would be such a demand for extended day and there wouldn't be any outrage at being cut out. Right now the primary alternative to extended day for most parents is getting a nanny to meet your kid at the bus. If there were other options, this wouldn't be an issue.

Anonymous wrote:I thought McK would have the biggest waitlist but, it's actually Ashlawn by about 10.

What are these 50 families going to do? Glebe is the other. So if you triangulate, Ballston Quarter should open an extended day center. or maybe everybody should take their kids the library...parents could take turns being the adult in charge...

other options...they just show up to extended day anyway and force APS to deal with it.

Extended Day is not an entitlement. It is heavily used by upper middle class families in Arlington (2/3 of extended day participants are at the top of the pay scale. https://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/arlington/Board.nsf/files/BAR4K96379EB/$file/20-26%20Extended%20Day%20Scale.pdf


While it works for some lower income students- many of those need other child care arrangements b/c their parents work hours don't correspond with extended day (e.g. shift type work starts at 6 or 7- extended day doesn't open until 7.)

I think extended day is a good program- but there are other child care options as well, and extended day space should not be prioritized beyond how much it already is.

Anonymous wrote:I will probably get flamed for this, but I also think that extended day should give priority to the youngest kids (K, 1 and 2). So I'd argue those should be automatically given spots, and then with the older kids let them have the extra spots, if there are any, or if they have a younger sibling.

Seems much more like an 8-10 year old would be fine taking a van to an off-site location like the YMCA for an hour or two than a 5-7 year old would be.

FCPS parent here. There is a wait list at most schools SACC. I see 5-7 transportation vans for various programs at my sons ES. Kids from kindergarten to sixth grade are on them. I know the program at the Y in Reston breaks the kids up by age groups and does activities with each different age group, has clubs, and homework support.Same for the Tae Kwon Do schools. My friends kid has been going to a TKD program since she was in Kindergarten. She was jealous that the older kids could choose a reward for finishing their homework because she didn't have any, so the center gave her coloring, writing, math, and reading sheets to do like the older kids. She loves her center.

Age really has nothing to do with how a kid will do in an after school program that is outside the school. Find a well run one and you will be fine.

I also know that many of the programs have scholarships for families and that they are not that much different in price point then the SACC in our area. We compared the SACC to the Y and found they were similar, the Y was a bit more expensive but not by much.

My kids school, a smaller one, has busses that got to TKD, Y, Kindercare, Gymnastics programs, and a few other private day care options.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will probably get flamed for this, but I also think that extended day should give priority to the youngest kids (K, 1 and 2). So I'd argue those should be automatically given spots, and then with the older kids let them have the extra spots, if there are any, or if they have a younger sibling.

Seems much more like an 8-10 year old would be fine taking a van to an off-site location like the YMCA for an hour or two than a 5-7 year old would be.

What about older kids who wouldn't do as well with that as younger kids (e.g., kids with anxiety of certain special needs)? And what about low-income parents who can get subsidized extended day through APS but couldn't afford an outside provider?

I'm the PP who wrote the suggested above. I get it! Of course there are plenty of reasons everyone wants extended day. If people didn't have reasons to desire it, it would never have waitlist!

The age thing seemed like an easy way to make the delineation to me. With the assumption that an extra transition in the day would be hardest on the youngest kids. Obviously it's not always cut and dry, as several people chimed in. But I'm not sure how we fix the simple fact that at 5 of elementary schools there are more people who want/need extended day than there are spots.

Anonymous wrote:I thought McK would have the biggest waitlist but, it's actually Ashlawn by about 10.

What are these 50 families going to do? Glebe is the other. So if you triangulate, Ballston Quarter should open an extended day center. or maybe everybody should take their kids the library...parents could take turns being the adult in charge...

other options...they just show up to extended day anyway and force APS to deal with it.

I think it’s actually 41 kids they don’t have slots for (not 40 families). The number of registrations is per kid, but the lottery will be by family.