ExchangeEveryDay Past Issues

I am the Coordinator/Director of a small child care center. The families that utilize this center are very grateful that we are open 12 hrs per day and care for all children from infancy through 12 years old. And we are open all year round. We do take all major holidays but that coincides with our working parents. It is important for the children as well as for the staff that the children are allowed to attend until they are 13 years old. We have a close relationship with the children, their elementary school teachers/bus drivers, their parents and other adults teaching extra curricular activities that some may be involved in. This is literally their home away from home. Many spend 9 to 12 hours per day here. Child care for infants is extremely difficult to find. It would be great, especially if, employers offered their own child care centersthat included infants. That would be ideal for so many families!

At Lady Gowrie Child Centre in Melbourne, Australia, 'preschool' education is integrated into our long day care children's programming from day one. We employ three qualified preschool teachers (4 year university trained) to work across our three rooms incorporating all ages from 0-5yrs. Our commitment is to provide early childhood education not just as preparation for school but as preparation for life. It is vital that we are able to provide flexible models of early childhood education to meet the diverse needs of families and the community. This commitment to quality costs! Now we need the commitment of government to fund this quality to benefit all children's early childhood development and meet families needs.

I am thrilled to see an article that encourages the use of existing preschools and childcares for state funded pre-kindergarten and extended care! It would seem that we are moving toward giving public schools the responsibility of children 0 - 5 when exisiting childcares and preschools are meeting parents needs for care and education and give parents more choices than public schools do, including faith based choices. I feel as if I have seen a glimpse of a voice of reason on this issue.

This article begins a serious dialogue about how families can best be served by pre-K programs in a variety of ways. Family child care is the care of choice for families across the country and offers an excellent opportunity for "pre-K" programs to impact children in multi-age settings. Some states already include family child care as an option for parents. I encourage those states designing programs now to explore all of the options for parents and include family child care in their planning. Child care programs everywhere benefit when the widest variety of appropriate settings are included in pre-K options for children and families.

Family child care homes offer Funded PreK programs in a few states. They are valuable to the families and workforce too. I have been offering the VPK (Voluntary PreK) program in my licensed and nationally accredited (NAFCC) home in Florida for 3 years. In FL, VPK is free to every 4 yr old regardless of family income or parent employment.