Daycare for teachers who is only open when school is open?

[Unregistered]

I keep teachers kids. I do not get paid for days the teacher doesn't work. I have however became the babysitter (so to speak) when they need child care for things like dr appointments and oh I need to work in my classroom. I was looking forward to my two week Christmas break with my family only. Sadly, I didn't put my foot down when I was asked the other day to give up part of one of my days. Seems my summer break has gotten shorter and shorter as well. You must hold your ground and make your policies known up front. If you plan to not work on days off, make that known up front!

[Annalee]

Generally speaking don't teachers in the same county have the same days off? I'm sure there may be some slight variances but for the most part it would seem pretty standard for them to have the same school holidays, summers, etc. It doesn't seem like it'd be that challenging to find 4 teachers in the same area who would be interested in this but I could be oversimplifying things.


We're not looking to start a huge daycare center (at least not initially) just want to find 4 kids she can watch during the day to make a bit of extra cash. Perhaps I'm being naive to think teachers would find this an attractive option.


I could see staying open on snow days, 1-day holidays, etc. However, the big ones (summer break, Thanksgiving, Christmas/New Years, spring break) we'd want to be closed.

In Nashville, which is Davidson County, there are tons of schools....I doubt they are on the same schedule..you could probably make it work with 4 families, though.

[FullHouse]

I sort of fell into only teachers care. I only have 4 kids and at one point it was three teachers and a 9 to 5 er. only having one in the summer just didnt make sense to me especially when my own four kids would be home and need tending to also.

Heres a couple things I wish I had known. My first year I didnt charge for snow days or govt closings of schools. We ended up having a total of almost three weeks off because of weather and electrical outages. Figures right? We makeup those days at the end of the year but missing out on three weeks pay during Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb when I dont charge for vacations (a week in Dec, Feb, April) was kind of hard. It was like I lost a month's pay in those four months. I now charge for emergency closings.

My teachers dont live in the town where they teach, where I am, my teachers will drop here and then go to their schools nearby rather than have care in the town they live. Its just a personal choice for them. I found that this work great for me except for maternity leave. I had a teacher have more children and since they didnt live nearby they didnt have their child attend. I quickly put in place a policy for maternity leave for half pay for the six weeks they were off. Since the new baby meant a new client I was ok with half pay for the six week period. if they choose to attend theyare of course fully charged.

Also, my teachers have Professional Days where the students have off but the teachers have school. Those are my chaos days....my own four and my four loaner kids. It only happens twice a school year and I think of my summers off often on those days.