Daycare (pre-elementary school) time off - how many days does yours take?

[matswife]

5 weeks for winter, Summer and spring vacation + 8 holidays + 4 teacher work/training days = 37 days. Excluding holidays that's nearly 6 weeks.

Saw the daycare annual cost thread which included some discussion on days off so was curious. Our 6 mo to 3 year old daycare goes by the local public school calendar (excluding all Summer off) which I think is a little much considering these are babies and toddlers and most professionals don't have this amount of time off. Having a toddler or two home is more hands on from a kid that is 5+. Difficult to get work done and that's for those that have the luxury of the WFH option. Most daycares in the area follow the same or have weird Mon - Thurs 8:30-3 schedules.

We pay $31k/annual for 1 kid and it's about to be $62k/annual for 2 so I'm a bit sensitive to the amount of time that gets taken away from my wife and I working/making $$$.

How many days closed for yours? Anybody feel the same or do I need to just suck it up and move on?

EDIT - Love the Daddit community! Appreciate the perspectives. Need to do more comments in return. Going to focus on finding a future Pre-k w/ less days closed. Go Dads!

 

[sweetestroseofall]

@matswife Ours takes federal holidays off, and follows our local elementary school for closures (snow, weather etc). Other than that, they're open.

I'd be looking for a new daycare if they had 5+ weeks off. I can't afford to take that much time off work or I'd be fired.

 

[matswife]

@sweetestroseofall Appreciate the response. Totally! I don't have that much time off either but we can manage by juggling w/ my wife. It seems majority of daycares here (SF bay area) are on the same schedule. Have some friends in Portland w/ the same.

It's baffling to me this is an accepted practice. So curious why it's that way here. The high cost is expected given where I live though.

 

[pennette]

@matswife Ours takes holidays off, but otherwise is open. They have times, around Christmas for instance, where they don't do a curriculum, but it's still open for childcare.

We pay $1,400/month for one child currently.

 

[countrygirl011]

@matswife My wife is a teacher in one in a Montessori setting and my son goes there. They never close. These are the ONLY holidays they are closed:

Thanksgiving day

Christmas eve

Christmas day

New Years day

4th of July

Other than weekends, 5 days out of 250-260 total weekdays. Not for nothing, that price seems a little high. My wife's school is a touch higher than that and has a heavy "academic" component (as academic as you can be with 0 - 5 year olds, I suppose).

That's a ton of days off, with what seems to be just a daycare, for the price you're paying.

In terms of staff, they have "floating holidays" the teachers can take.

EDIT: I edited my post. They actually are open MDW/LDW. The teachers just can take it as a "floating holiday" if they wish.

 

[matswife]

@countrygirl011 Really interesting point and perspective w/ your wife's Montessori. I always figured the larger daycare advantage was they could float teacher schedules around.

I guessed wrong. Wife had the daycare task during a very stressful move. I probably need to stop dwelling on it since the education is solid and kiddo loves it but so interesting it's most commonly this way (days closed) in the area we live, SF bay area.

 

[countrygirl011]

@matswife SF explains the high cost. You might be the only area with higher average cost of daycare/preschool than us lol. We are in northern NJ. They are actually chomping at the bit to open an elementary format one down the road from where she works because of the dollar signs. With that being said, the MO around here for preschools and daycares is that: You don't close for every holiday. I actually know people in the same situation. The parents get PO'd pretty quick.

Those settings are controlled chaos with scheduling. I see what her director goes through with staff being sick (happens a lot), calling out, trying to manage the floating holidays, etc. There's a much bigger can of worms with why this happens in terms of staff being underpaid, etc. We won't open that one though.

I run my own business. My wife, because she works in the school, it's actually not great because she never gets a break. With all those days off? It would be a big problem for us if my wife worked another independent career. One of my staff here has that issue. Her daughter goes to one that has a legit 10-day holiday break.

 

[timeraveler]

@matswife The daycare we used in the DC area closed for 2 weeks in August and one week between Christmas and New Years. There were some random federal holidays in there too but I’m a fed so I usually had those days off anyway.

 

[thatguy3]

@timeraveler Also a fed in the DMV area and ours does the same except they have a "Summer daycare" semester instead of closing during what would be Summer break.

 

[1seansmom]

@matswife Mine takes federal and state holidays plus ~2 weeks for staff vacations, including between Christmas and New Year's, and a handful of half days (like the Wednesday before Thanksgiving). But they also give each kid 2 weeks of "vacation" where we don't have to pay the daycare costs for time when we're not using the daycare. So it nets just above federal and state holidays, which is totally reasonable. We pay ~21K for the one infant, a really really good deal for our area.

Five weeks plus holidays plus training time seems... excessive IMO. It also drives me crazy when daycares operate at the same hours as school, especially for infants - no one works those hours!

But... Do you have any better options? Sadly that's the only relevant question for whether or not you have to suck it up.