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Showing stories 1 - 8 of 8.
VA - Carroll schools will try out child care program
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Thursday, March 22 @ 09:00:27 EDT by emohan
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Three Carroll County elementary schools could have a trial run of before- and after-school child care.
Members of the Carroll School Board unanimously approved a proposal Tuesday to begin offering the care through a private, third-party provider.
Before-school child care would start at 6 a.m. and after-school care would extend to 6 p.m. at Hillsville, Gladeville and St. Paul schools.
A survey by staff last year showed the most parents from these three schools would use these services.
“We do think that if this is run well and works to its potential that we will be looking to expand in the future,” said Assistant Superintendent Strader Blankenship. “But right now we'd like to start with those three schools.”
He explained to school board members the particulars of the contract that staff and counsel negotiated with the firm that submitted the top proposal.
The daycare company will have all licensing to provide daycare to elementary school-aged children, and activities will include homework help, physical activities, games and arts and crafts.
The cost of is $20 per week for before-school care, $30 for after-school care and $50 for both. The price is locked in for the whole year.
School staff won't know if those costs are prohibitive until they put the concept out to the public, Blankenship said.
The sites have to reach a minimum of 25 students to operate, Blankenship said. The company will pay the schools for facility use.
And the company could offer full-day programs, such as on teacher in-service days, if there's enough interest.
Transportation to and from childcare has to be provided by parents, he said.
Full text available at the Galax Gazette
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VA - Schools could offer childcare
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Monday, January 08 @ 13:15:50 EST by emohan
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Educators in Carroll will seek proposals for before- and after-school childcare at Hillsville, Gladeville and St. Paul schools.
“We have had a number of inquiries from parents about the possibility of providing childcare before school starts and after school ends each day,” Assistant Superintendent Strader Blankenship reported at the Dec. 12 school board meeting.
Blankenship's report follows Carroll's participation in a regional meeting hosted by Floyd County on the same subject in October.
All school systems represented there, including Giles, Pulaski and Wythe, agreed to survey parents of elementary school aged children to see how interested they were in a childcare program.
Carroll issued its own survey to parents in November.
More parents from Gladeville, Hillsville and St. Paul answered they would enroll for childcare if such a service was offered, the survey showed.
School system-wide, educators got 621 surveys returned with a little more than 300 respondents seeing a need for the service and a total of 268 saying they would participate.
The lion's share of those responding to the survey, 76.44 percent, depend on family members for childcare now.
Based on survey results, staff recommended that the school board set up a pilot program where survey respondents indicated there is the most need, Blankenship said.
“The numbers at these sites appear to be large enough to sustain such a program, and [these schools] are geographically spread throughout the county,” he said.
Blankenship stressed that childcare services would come from a third party provider, not the school system itself, but would be hosted at these three schools from 6 a.m. until the start of classes and after the end of the day to 6 p.m.
Any company providing the service must be a licensed day care provider.
Full text available at the Galax Gazette
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MD - Parents Scramble As Child Care Centers Close
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Thursday, January 04 @ 09:49:58 EST by emohan
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The Baltimore County school district's new policy to close buildings before and after school on snow days has thousands of county parents scrambling for day care.
Parents said childcare operators that use Baltimore County school buildings told them that they could no longer open early or stay open late during bad weather.
"My immediate response was anger, because we were so close to December when the letter had come out," Stephanie Knight said, a Baltimore County mother who had received a letter from the Open Door After School Program based in Towson.
Knight's son is a student at Woodbridge Elementary School, one of 25 schools leasing space to the Open Door program.
"I've had to come up with alternatives for my son to be out of school and for me to be at work. I can't take all that time at work, so I have to make alternatives arrangements," she said.
County school officials said the policy change, made in later October, is based strictly on safety.
"If a school is not safe to open, or if we need to close a school because of inclement weather, we certainly don't want to put at risk students and employees who would be at those child care provider centers," said Charlie Herndon, a school official.
But parents said the sudden change has left them with little to no time to make new child care arrangements, and school officials said they're still concerned.
Full text available at WBALTV 11
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An after-school struggle to juggle kids and work
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Wednesday, January 03 @ 09:35:30 EST by emohan
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It's 3 p.m. Do you know where your children are? Every weekday afternoon, Claire Celsi faces that question as she thinks about her two teenagers, ages 13 and 14. With no after-school program available for them, she must keep tabs on their whereabouts and activities from her office.
"It's a huge balancing act," says Ms. Celsi, a publicist in Des Moines, Iowa. "I make them call me from our home phone, so I know they're home."
Millions of working parents share similar concerns as they watch the clock and hope that their after-school arrangements are in place. For their employers, these distractions can take a huge toll on productivity, according to a new study by Catalyst and the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass.
"The good news is that many parents have good support and good programs in place to help them," says Laura Sabattini, a researcher at Catalyst. "But many have concerns about what's going on [after school]. Calling children or even just being worried can lead to distraction at work."
Despite progress, many communities still face a serious shortage of affordable, high-quality after-school programs. More than 14 million students between kindergarten and 12th grade take care of themselves after school, says Jodi Grant, executive director of the Afterschool Alliance in Washington, D.C. That includes 40,000 kindergartners and almost 4 million middle school students in grades 6 to 8.
More than a third of the US labor force consists of parents of minor children. Almost three-fourths of those children are between 5 and 18 years old. Two- thirds of these parents are employed full-time. The gap between the time school lets out at 2 p.m. or 3 p.m. and the time most full-time employed parents get home at 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. adds up to 15 to 25 hours a week.
Researchers call this challenge Parental Concern over After School Time, or PCAST. It affects workers from the factory floor to the executive suite, mothers and fathers alike.
"They may be called at work or have to leave work for any disruption of their after-school care arrangements," the Catalyst report explains. "Just worrying about [that] possibility may affect productivity - and thus the employer's bottom line." In one study, more than half the women and almost a third of the men said that work/family stress affected their ability to concentrate on the job.
Full text available at the Christian Science Monitor
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ME - Windham school board faced with child care issue
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Thursday, November 30 @ 09:24:32 EST by emohan
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The Windham School Board is gearing up for an important vote this month over a nonprofit status of a daycare center that operates out of three of Windham's public schools.
The Windham School Board will decide at its Wednesday, Dec. 14 meeting how much School Age Child Care will be charged to run out of the Manchester elementary, middle and high schools.
Critics say the day care service, which charges for enrollment and pays its employees, has an unfair advantage over the 52 privately owned, licensed day care centers in Windham.
School Age Child Care (SACC) board of director’s member Donna Cobb, who also serves on the Windham School Board, said that SACC needs to pay its employees because of the large amount of time required by the program. SACC runs weekdays for three to four hours after school lets out, Cobb said.
"There wouldn't be anyone out there that I can begin to imagine that would volunteer to do this each and every afternoon," said Cobb.
Cobb, who will not be voting on the issue because of a conflict of interest, said that SACC pays the town $525 per month to use the three schools, including the playground, cafeterias and gymnasiums. SACC provides its own expendable resources, such as art supplies and snacks.
There are three different categories in regard to payment for a group to use school facilities, Cobb said. School functions, like plays and dances, are not charged anything. Nonprofit 501(c)3 groups, such as the Boy Scouts or the Parent-Teacher Association, are charged a small fee. Commercial revenue-based groups are charged a larger rate to use the school facilities. Cobb said that right now, SACC is being treated as a nonprofit organization, but the vote has the potential to treat SACC as a commercial group.
Cobb also owns Donna's Daycare in Windham, which caters to both below-school age and school age children.
SACC Director Diane Hancock, who is also Cobb's daughter, said SACC would have a tough time surviving if it is treated as a commercial business.
"I think that the people who want to close the program down are very short-sighted. There aren't enough spots in the Windham community," Hancock said, suggesting that not all of the 102 kids enrolled in SACC would be able to find replacement day care centers.
Full text available at Keep Current
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NC - After school care may increase
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Wednesday, November 29 @ 09:33:51 EST by emohan
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Parents could soon be paying more to enroll their children in a popular after school program if the Rockingham County Board of Education approves an increase in the program's rates.
The Kids Companion program, sponsored by the Rockingham County Schools, provides childcare before and after school to between 500 and 600 students, the program's administrator Vicky Higdon told school board members at Monday's board meeting. The program operates out of eight elementary schools throughout the county.
The program serves children ages 5 to 12 outside of Reidsville and Eden and in the western part of the county for a fee. Before school care starts at 6:30 a.m. and lasts until 7:30 a.m. and after school care starts at 2:30 p.m. and ends at 6 p.m.
Dr. Ann Brady, county schools' director of exceptional children, says the rates are needed to help cover increased program costs associated with employees' salaries, benefits, various expenses and staff training needed for each site to maintain its state certification. Brady says toys and materials are also needed to keep up the 3-star rating of the program's sites.
"I'm worried we're going to break even this year," Brady told the board. "If we wait 'til summer (to raise rates), we may go in the hole."
Brady is proposing a $2 per day increase for every child, for most services including only after school care, before and after school care, and all day care. The program has not proposed a rate increase for only before school care. Brady is also asking the board to approve $5 increases for registration and supply fees, returned checks, late pickups and late payment fees.
The program last increased its rates two years ago.
Higdon also told the board some parents are abusing the program, waiting until 8 p.m. to pick up their kids. Higdon says some parents think they can pick up their kids as late as they want, as long as they pay the late fee, $5 for every 10 minutes past closing time.
The new proposal would raise the late pickup fee to $10 every 10 minutes for late pickups by parents. Superintendent Dr. Rodney Shotwell says parents who pick up their kids late aren't being fair to the childcare workers who have families of their own to go home to.
To remain a self-sustaining program, Brady says the increases are needed so that it does not have to ask for more money from the school board later. Brady says the program broke even last year, but needed more money from the board to finish operating during the 2004-05 school year. She says the program is already skimping on energy costs where it can and would like a financial cushion for utilities, supplies and training costs.
Full text available at the Eden Daily News
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KY - 7 of 10 voters want funding for afterschool
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Thursday, November 16 @ 09:27:49 EST by emohan
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Voters want the new Congress and their newly elected state and local officials to increase funding for afterschool programs, according to a public opinion survey conducted on election eve and election day.
Developed by Lake, Snell, Perry & Associates, Inc. for the Afterschool Alliance, the poll found that 72 percent of voters agree that “our newly elected public officials in Congress should increase funding for afterschool programs,” and just 24 percent disagree.
When asked if they'd support “increase[d] funding for afterschool programs even if it leads to a tax increase,” 69 percent of voters said they want funding to increase.
Seventy-three percent want their newly elected state and local officials to provide more funds for afterschool programs.
Grayson County gets no federal funds for its afterschool programs, currently consisting of private day care paid for by parents and extended school services that are funded by the state.
Last year, there were 2,115 students who took part in some form of extended school services. School administrators say they apply for grants to offer more extra help and care, but the grants are hard to win.
Local Head Start (Breckinridge-Grayson Programs) classes, for children age 3 to 5, is funded by federal money, but most communities do not have a local head start program that benefits mostly low-income families.
Full text available at the Grayson County News-Gazette
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CO - After-school program faces staffing shortage
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Friday, August 25 @ 09:20:34 EDT by emohan
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Parents of Summit Cove and Silverthorne elementary school students who rely on after-school childcare got an unwelcome surprise the first day of the new year, when they learned that there were no counselors available at the two schools to cover the day camp program.
A notice on the front door of Silverthorne Elementary School announced the temporary suspension of the program, but officials with the school district and Summit Day Camps scrambled Thursday to find staff. By the end of the day, they were able to fill the Silverthorne position, and day camp staff will cover the Summit Cove shifts to make sure the care is available right from the start of the school year.
"Our doors are open," said day camp program director Melinda Henry, who will cover at least some of the shifts at Summit Cove until a permanent staffer is hired. Henry said it was the notice on the door at Silverthorne that spurred a part-time employee from last year to apply for the job on short notice.
"It's something we have to provide for our families," Summit School District's Karen Mason said after Superintendent Millie Hamner discussed the situation with Henry.
The annual budget for the after-school program is $261,600, with Summit County kicking in abut $15,000. Mason said that, with the fees collected, the program is self-sustaining.
"We're desperately looking for someone to fill the Silverthorne spot," Mason said. The 20-hour per week, $10 per hour jobs have been advertised since the beginning of August.
"We just haven't had any applications," said Henry, who filled in at Summit Cove on an emergency basis Thursday afternoon. "The problem is, there is an employee shortage in Summit County."
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