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Status_Fox_1474 t1_jcibby1 wrote

I think a 3-k system is useless if it ends at 2 pm or earlier. A daycare goes to 5 or 6, when parents can pick kids up. Even UPK has extended care (paid) opportunities. I don’t know if 3-k does.

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exclusivo_nyc t1_jcif21x wrote

I think it varies by school, the hours at my twins school is 8:40-3:00 and you can pay for early arrival and late pickup until 5:30 I believe. It's funny reading all these posts about low enrollment because the school we use has multiple buildings, and classes. The school we go to has 4 classes, with 15 kids each, and there are two more buildings across the street and they have a few more schools in their network. The program has been really helpful for me, with twins, daycare was costing me almost 3k/month, plus they serve breakfast, lunch and snacks/fruit throughout the day, I recommend it to everyone.

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smallint t1_jck00z9 wrote

Is it $3k because of the two kids? Meaning it’s about $1,500 per kid?

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exclusivo_nyc t1_jck4dh6 wrote

Yes exactly , and that's with my wife's Healthcare discount, and in Queens if that matters. I've seen rates from 1200 to 2k+.

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Major_Supermarket_57 t1_jcikrnh wrote

While what you say is true, there’s a lot of 3-K options that function in private daycares that provide an option to pay to complete the full day (8-6pm). My youngest kid is enrolled in one of them, and while you still have to pay (18k/year in my case) it’s a lot less than I paid with my first where 3-K for all wasn’t available in district 2 yet and the same school cost me 48k/year.

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moarwineprs t1_jcilp2g wrote

I wasn't up to 48k/year before 3K, but same. With 3K we pay for extended care to cover the entire work day and also DOE holidays. The daycare my kids go to received 1000s of applications this year for 3K. There's only space for something like 10 kids, with priority to applicants who are already students at the center.

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[deleted] t1_jcjtvdk wrote

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wildernessspirit t1_jcooxk3 wrote

>is this childcare or education?

Two birds, one stone. There are definitely flaws in the way the system is designed currently but I think it's an issue with the charter system as a whole. The private UPK schools dont have a financial incentive to keep 3 or 4 extra teachers on payroll to allow for the extended day. And honestly teachers dont have an incentive either because their employers are unwilling to offer adequate compensation.

Call me a fundamentalist if you want, but this is a great example of why all levels of education should be Public. So that universal childcare is possible.

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[deleted] t1_jcvzhsh wrote

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Status_Fox_1474 t1_jcw08o8 wrote

Right. But in-school 3-k still suffers the problem that there's no real after-school care out of school or in-school (through a third party) -- the providers that I know of begin in Kindergarten at the earliest.

So what it means is that even a "full day 3-k" program means that a parent would have to pick up their child at 2 p.m., which is difficult in a two-worker household. So they'd rather keep their kids in a daycare, where the kid can be picked up later.

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