Katherine's new school

In the wake of the new baby coming we decided to move Katherine to a new daycare. Really and truly we were never satisfied with Growing Child. It was the best that was available at that time in our end of the county. It also had a location that enabled us to continue to carpool to work. K was settled there and seemed pretty happy. Since the transition from Dix to there was rough, we were reluctant to move her and go through that again. Still, I have to be honest, little things would bother us. Not in terms of safety (which would have prompted an immediate move) but other areas that gave us the impression that the program was not as strong as it's four star state rating and affiliation with a well regarded pediatric practice would have one believe. I felt that many of the teachers viewed what they were doing as a babysitting job; others seemed just plain apethetic. Yes, there were some strong ones there, which always made me second guess my thinking. But then there was the morning hand washing, required by state law that just never seemed to happen, which really irked me. Parents would drop and run and teachers would not enforce the hand washing rule. A complaint to the director resulted in an improvement for a few weeks but old habits came back quick.

I told myself that I felt the way I did because I would always be comparing that center to Dix and it would never measure up. Really, what could measure up to having onsite child care where you work?

As soon as we found out we were pregnant we inquired about tuition rates for two children at Growing Child and about fell over. Most centers give you a discount for having two children enrolled, Growing Child's amounted to about $43 off our monthly bill. Which brings up another thing that was irking us. Tuition rates were not published. They were based on age of child and when you started at the center. The theory behind that was that they could guarantee you that your rate would never go up and increased costs would be passed on to new families. Made sense in theory but in practice it seemed suspect. When your child moved from room to room, you had to request a tuition decrease and the director had to pass the request on to the owner who would come back with a response of "they can have 5% off their bill" or something like that. I don't think it was done uniformly so basically, that amounted to everyone in the room probably paying a different rate for the same care. It created a weird vibe. Plus when I inquired about the rate for the new baby I found we would be paying the same rate for him/her as a family that just walked in the door even though we've been with the center for over a year. Huh?

We had heard about a new daycare in Zebulon from our neighbors across the street. They had just moved their two kids there and we not only saving a bundle in tuition, the program was better than their old center as well. They warned that the building was not that impressive from the outside but there were good things going on on the inside. So I went over for a little looksie. I liked what I saw. Yes, there was still more work to be done on the actual building (owner converted a former industrial building) but I saw teachers actively engaging with kids, lots of artwork all over the walls, plenty of TLC, and an owner who was motivated to keep making improvements to the center. Since its a small family business (owner's kid is in K's class actually) there's motivation to make it work. Plus the tuition rate, not only are we saving just on K's tuition alone right now, when we enroll the little one we'll be saving $500 a month over what we would have been paying for 2 at Growing Child. I'll let you swallow that number...$500. That's a lot of diapers and formula.

Monday was K's first day. I was very nervous about the transition. We began talking it up with her weeks ago as her new "big girl" school. I had even driven her by it a few times. On Friday I took her for a visit. I had no reason to be worried. She loved it immediately and actually cried when I told her it was time to go home. She talked about wanting to go back the whole weekend. Drop off yesterday and today was a breeze, no tears, just a wave to Ted and I. The teachers reported on her daily sheet (OMG, we get those again, I can't tell you the last time we got a daily report at Growing Child) that "Katherine was a joy in the classroom". She was up at 5:15 this morning, ready to go. This just confirms our feelings...we needed this change. It's like a breath of fresh air.