Saturday, May 30, 2009
Meeting Sunday
The first meeting for parents interested in the co-op idea is tomorrow (Sunday, May 31st) at 4pm. Anyone interested in attending should contact me at elaine.mcvey at gmail.com or 272-8013 for more details.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Feeling Optimistic
A quick update - there are two other interested parents so far (and I've only just begun to get the idea out), so the ball is rolling. I was very encouraged just to know that there are other people who think this might be a good idea! I've also gotten some helpful advice from the director of the local school I greatly admire, and have some more concrete information on some costs. So far I haven't learned anything that makes me think it's not feasible, so we just need to find a few more interested parents and we can start thinking about the next steps.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Recruiting Interested Parents for Brainstorming!
This site is intended to outline some ideas about creating a new childcare option in downtown Durham. The three posts below present our story (why we're thinking about this), our vision, and some thoughts about how the details would work. This is in the stage right now where we are brainstorming and trying to decide whether it is feasible. The first step is to find other parents who might be interested and start a discussion to think of some creative approaches. Our son Ian was born in July of 2008, so we'd be looking for people with kids born in a range approximately 9/07-9/08.
After reading (start with the bottom post and read up), if you are interested or have suggestions, please post a comment or contact me at elaine.mcvey at gmail. Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts!
-Elaine
After reading (start with the bottom post and read up), if you are interested or have suggestions, please post a comment or contact me at elaine.mcvey at gmail. Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts!
-Elaine
Execution
Once we pass the first hurdle of getting together a group of interested families, the next challenge is to work out the details. We've envisioned a few different scenarios, and the group of parents would have to decide what would work best. Here is our basic thinking:
Having a single adult alone with kids seems like a bad idea for several reasons. We think it's important for there to be two adults at all times. One of these adults (the "lead teacher") should be someone who is there all day, every day. For the second adult (the "assistant"), it could be a single person or two people (perhaps parents) splitting the duties. Two people should be enough to manage 6-8 kids well, and still be able to go places with them (with the kids riding in a buggy and a stroller).
Planning curriculum/activities would be done by a subset of the parents, with input from the lead teacher. Other parents would take on the tasks of collecting supplies, managing funds, and doing other administrative work, according to their interests and talents. Parents would also rotate filling in when teachers are on vacation or sick (I calculate this to be likely to be ~7 days per family per year, based on 3 weeks of vacation and 8 sick days per teacher). This represents a lot of involvement on the parents' part, so this would have to be something families were interested in committing to and working on. The benefit (other than excellent care for our children) would be having a real sense of community with the families of the kids your child spends his or her days with.
After deciding what basic setup we'd like, the next task would be to choose a location and hire people. The location could be someone's home if that comes up as an option, but more likely it would be a house that we rent. The location of the house would be important to ensure that it is within walking distance to things that we want the kids to be able to visit regularly. A small house would provide ample space for the kids, with cots set up for naptime in a bedroom, access to a kitchen for storing food, and at least two rooms for play and activities (two rooms would allow space to split kids into two groups by age at times). A yard could contain some playground equipment and space to play.
Clearly a big factor in determining feasibility would be cost. My current estimate is the following:
Two teachers, $15/hr for the lead teacher, $10/hr for assistant (this doesn't sound like a lot, but from what I have learned it is quite a bit more than is standard!). 9 hours per day (thinking that we'd be open 8-5ish), 22 days per month. Add in some possible social security/unemployment/etc. requirements to pay for the lead teacher, and this totals $5750 per month for human resources. Add to that $800/month in rent and $300/month in supplies. This works out to $1150/month for 6 kids or $850/month for 8 kids. No doubt these numbers would need to be adjusted, but this is a starting point. My conclusion is that this may not be a good venture for families who are extremely cost sensitive, but that it should be possible to do it for something similar to what other high quality care costs.
Another important detail is legal requirements and state licensing rules. Depending on how we arrange to do the care and how many kids we decide to have together, we would potentially fall into one of the state's two categories that require licensing. This definitely puts more demands on us, but as far as I can tell, they are possible to meet. We'd also have to decide whether/how to form a legal entity, likely as a form of non-profit in which the parents would be the board of directors. These are things to consider after we've decided how we want the care arrangement to work.
Having a single adult alone with kids seems like a bad idea for several reasons. We think it's important for there to be two adults at all times. One of these adults (the "lead teacher") should be someone who is there all day, every day. For the second adult (the "assistant"), it could be a single person or two people (perhaps parents) splitting the duties. Two people should be enough to manage 6-8 kids well, and still be able to go places with them (with the kids riding in a buggy and a stroller).
Planning curriculum/activities would be done by a subset of the parents, with input from the lead teacher. Other parents would take on the tasks of collecting supplies, managing funds, and doing other administrative work, according to their interests and talents. Parents would also rotate filling in when teachers are on vacation or sick (I calculate this to be likely to be ~7 days per family per year, based on 3 weeks of vacation and 8 sick days per teacher). This represents a lot of involvement on the parents' part, so this would have to be something families were interested in committing to and working on. The benefit (other than excellent care for our children) would be having a real sense of community with the families of the kids your child spends his or her days with.
After deciding what basic setup we'd like, the next task would be to choose a location and hire people. The location could be someone's home if that comes up as an option, but more likely it would be a house that we rent. The location of the house would be important to ensure that it is within walking distance to things that we want the kids to be able to visit regularly. A small house would provide ample space for the kids, with cots set up for naptime in a bedroom, access to a kitchen for storing food, and at least two rooms for play and activities (two rooms would allow space to split kids into two groups by age at times). A yard could contain some playground equipment and space to play.
Clearly a big factor in determining feasibility would be cost. My current estimate is the following:
Two teachers, $15/hr for the lead teacher, $10/hr for assistant (this doesn't sound like a lot, but from what I have learned it is quite a bit more than is standard!). 9 hours per day (thinking that we'd be open 8-5ish), 22 days per month. Add in some possible social security/unemployment/etc. requirements to pay for the lead teacher, and this totals $5750 per month for human resources. Add to that $800/month in rent and $300/month in supplies. This works out to $1150/month for 6 kids or $850/month for 8 kids. No doubt these numbers would need to be adjusted, but this is a starting point. My conclusion is that this may not be a good venture for families who are extremely cost sensitive, but that it should be possible to do it for something similar to what other high quality care costs.
Another important detail is legal requirements and state licensing rules. Depending on how we arrange to do the care and how many kids we decide to have together, we would potentially fall into one of the state's two categories that require licensing. This definitely puts more demands on us, but as far as I can tell, they are possible to meet. We'd also have to decide whether/how to form a legal entity, likely as a form of non-profit in which the parents would be the board of directors. These are things to consider after we've decided how we want the care arrangement to work.
The Vision
When we think about creating our own childcare, here are the things we value that we would aim for. For this to work, it is important that other families in the co-op also feel passionately about these things.
* High parental involvement and input
We're calling this theoretical venture a co-op. Not in the traditional sense of childcare co-op, in which parents take turns actually doing childcare themselves (although that could potentially be a part of this), but in the sense that there is no "owner/operator" other than the parents. The parents would make the decisions, do some of the administrative/planning tasks, and be highly involved. We picture something like a board of directors (the parents) meeting monthly.
* Residential setting
One of the things I don't like about institutional daycare is that kids get less chance to participate in residential life. There's no reason why a group of kids can't be cared for in a house in a neighborhood, where they can be part of normal life.
* Participation in city life
One of the reasons we love living in downtown Durham is that we feel part of the city. We walk to things, we make use of public spaces and places. If I stayed home with Ian, I'd be taking him places during the days, and I'd like him to be going places even though he's in childcare. If the number of kids is small enough (6 kids can fit in a bye-bye buggy (big stroller!)), and the location is well-chosen, the kids could walk to public parks, events at the library, museums, etc., instead of being stuck inside one building and yard all day every day.
* Well compensated childcare providers
We don't think childcare workers should be paid so poorly. To get the best people, we should pay reasonably. It seems possible to do this without childcare costing an unusual amount - the co-op would save money because parents would be involved in tasks a center would have to pay an administrator to do.
* Guiding kids in an exploration of their interests
One of the things I remember about my tour of the Lakewood school is that they had a station set up with some medical equipment where kids were playing. They did this because a couple of the children in the class had broken arms, baby siblings born, etc., and they were interested in hospitals. I love this! I think it's great to pick up on kids' own interests and then help guide them in the exploration of these, rather than sticking to a rigid curriculum. In my mind, one of the best things about having input into Ian's care would be that I could suggest activities based on things he's interested in at different times. At our current childcare center, I feel like the curriculum is a little ridiculous, and planned to impress parents rather than to do what's best for the kids. I think a curriculum should provide a framework, to make sure kids get a variety of developmentally appropriate activities, but it should be designed to nurture kids' natural curiosity and creativity rather than to get them to do things in a pre-determined way (I remember my brother's brief time as a child at a daycare he hated, in which they always told him what to draw and exactly how his arts and crafts should look!).
* Sensible health and safety
The center Ian currently goes to has an extreme number of safety measures, but ignores some precautions that I think are important for kids' long-term health -- things like organic food, not spraying anything on the grass, not using carpet cleaning chemicals, etc. I'd like to pack Ian's food so that I can decide what he eats, and arrange to use the safest cleaning products, etc., that are available.
* Consistency over time
Ideally, this co-op would involve a group of kids and parents and childcare givers (probably 2), who would stay constant over a period of years. The group would grow up together, rather than moving to new groups and new teachers each year.
* High parental involvement and input
We're calling this theoretical venture a co-op. Not in the traditional sense of childcare co-op, in which parents take turns actually doing childcare themselves (although that could potentially be a part of this), but in the sense that there is no "owner/operator" other than the parents. The parents would make the decisions, do some of the administrative/planning tasks, and be highly involved. We picture something like a board of directors (the parents) meeting monthly.
* Residential setting
One of the things I don't like about institutional daycare is that kids get less chance to participate in residential life. There's no reason why a group of kids can't be cared for in a house in a neighborhood, where they can be part of normal life.
* Participation in city life
One of the reasons we love living in downtown Durham is that we feel part of the city. We walk to things, we make use of public spaces and places. If I stayed home with Ian, I'd be taking him places during the days, and I'd like him to be going places even though he's in childcare. If the number of kids is small enough (6 kids can fit in a bye-bye buggy (big stroller!)), and the location is well-chosen, the kids could walk to public parks, events at the library, museums, etc., instead of being stuck inside one building and yard all day every day.
* Well compensated childcare providers
We don't think childcare workers should be paid so poorly. To get the best people, we should pay reasonably. It seems possible to do this without childcare costing an unusual amount - the co-op would save money because parents would be involved in tasks a center would have to pay an administrator to do.
* Guiding kids in an exploration of their interests
One of the things I remember about my tour of the Lakewood school is that they had a station set up with some medical equipment where kids were playing. They did this because a couple of the children in the class had broken arms, baby siblings born, etc., and they were interested in hospitals. I love this! I think it's great to pick up on kids' own interests and then help guide them in the exploration of these, rather than sticking to a rigid curriculum. In my mind, one of the best things about having input into Ian's care would be that I could suggest activities based on things he's interested in at different times. At our current childcare center, I feel like the curriculum is a little ridiculous, and planned to impress parents rather than to do what's best for the kids. I think a curriculum should provide a framework, to make sure kids get a variety of developmentally appropriate activities, but it should be designed to nurture kids' natural curiosity and creativity rather than to get them to do things in a pre-determined way (I remember my brother's brief time as a child at a daycare he hated, in which they always told him what to draw and exactly how his arts and crafts should look!).
* Sensible health and safety
The center Ian currently goes to has an extreme number of safety measures, but ignores some precautions that I think are important for kids' long-term health -- things like organic food, not spraying anything on the grass, not using carpet cleaning chemicals, etc. I'd like to pack Ian's food so that I can decide what he eats, and arrange to use the safest cleaning products, etc., that are available.
* Consistency over time
Ideally, this co-op would involve a group of kids and parents and childcare givers (probably 2), who would stay constant over a period of years. The group would grow up together, rather than moving to new groups and new teachers each year.
Our Story
We moved to downtown Durham from northwest Raleigh in January 2009*. We love living in Durham. When we moved, our son Ian was 5 months old, and we were piecing together a variety of childcare options (my part-time work, my brother, my husband, and a friend with a slightly older child were caring for him at various times). He was signed up to start going to a daycare center in Raleigh in February. We had reserved his spot at this center a full year in advance in order to get him in. When he started, we had already moved to Durham, and now drive back and forth to Raleigh every day.
After a few weeks in Durham it was clear to us that this was the place for us, and that we would never move back to Raleigh. We started looking for childcare in Durham. I was pleased to find several places I was interested in and set up tours. On these tours, I was excited to discover that there were childcare centers that had the same philosophy to childcare that I have (unlike Ian's current daycare), and are places I could feel really happy about taking him. I've been sad to find, however, that Ian is not going to get into any of these centers (Lakewood Ave. School, Kin Too, and First Pres. Day School). In part, this is because all the childcare in Durham that I like (except Kin Too) gives preference to children of Duke employees. Also, there is clearly much higher demand for this care than there is supply.
I have been contemplating our options:
1) Continue taking Ian to daycare in Raleigh indefinitely.
This center is high quality but does not agree with my philosophy, which will be a bigger problem as he gets older. We also really want to have him somewhere local, so that his friends when he's a little older will live in the same city he does. We'd also like to stop spending an hour of the time we have with our son each weekday driving back and forth.
2) Take Ian to a daycare in Durham that we don't feel good about -- obviously unsatisfying.
3) Continue to hope that Ian will get into one of the daycares we like off the waiting list -- realistically this could take years, and at places like Lakewood is unlikely to ever succeed.
4) Create a new childcare option for ourselves that will provide the kind of environment we envision for our son.
Right now we're exploring option 4 to see if it's possible. It seems like this depends mostly on whether we can find a group of parents with similarly aged children who are committed to the idea and share our values. If it works out, we're hoping we can create a great childcare option for a small group of families in Durham!
* There were several reasons for our move - primarily because we didn't like our cookie-cutter neighborhood with its nutty homeowner's association and because we found maintaining our large house and yard overwhelming and unsatisfying. We wanted to be able to focus on working, raising our son, and allow my husband to devote his time to his business. We intentionally downsized and got rid of a lot of excess stuff. Our life now is much simpler!
After a few weeks in Durham it was clear to us that this was the place for us, and that we would never move back to Raleigh. We started looking for childcare in Durham. I was pleased to find several places I was interested in and set up tours. On these tours, I was excited to discover that there were childcare centers that had the same philosophy to childcare that I have (unlike Ian's current daycare), and are places I could feel really happy about taking him. I've been sad to find, however, that Ian is not going to get into any of these centers (Lakewood Ave. School, Kin Too, and First Pres. Day School). In part, this is because all the childcare in Durham that I like (except Kin Too) gives preference to children of Duke employees. Also, there is clearly much higher demand for this care than there is supply.
I have been contemplating our options:
1) Continue taking Ian to daycare in Raleigh indefinitely.
This center is high quality but does not agree with my philosophy, which will be a bigger problem as he gets older. We also really want to have him somewhere local, so that his friends when he's a little older will live in the same city he does. We'd also like to stop spending an hour of the time we have with our son each weekday driving back and forth.
2) Take Ian to a daycare in Durham that we don't feel good about -- obviously unsatisfying.
3) Continue to hope that Ian will get into one of the daycares we like off the waiting list -- realistically this could take years, and at places like Lakewood is unlikely to ever succeed.
4) Create a new childcare option for ourselves that will provide the kind of environment we envision for our son.
Right now we're exploring option 4 to see if it's possible. It seems like this depends mostly on whether we can find a group of parents with similarly aged children who are committed to the idea and share our values. If it works out, we're hoping we can create a great childcare option for a small group of families in Durham!
* There were several reasons for our move - primarily because we didn't like our cookie-cutter neighborhood with its nutty homeowner's association and because we found maintaining our large house and yard overwhelming and unsatisfying. We wanted to be able to focus on working, raising our son, and allow my husband to devote his time to his business. We intentionally downsized and got rid of a lot of excess stuff. Our life now is much simpler!
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