Parent Survey: Increasing FUMP’s Hours

Thanks to all of you who have completed your surveys.  We received 25 responses over the weekend. We still need your response – hopefully by Wednesday of this week so that we can proceed with registration on February 3.As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please let me know.

We are considering expanding our program to a five hour school day in the fall. To do so, we need parent input to fully explore this option.

There are two main reasons for exploring this expansion. We have some feedback that parents are interested in a longer school day, and I would like to see our amazing teachers’ salaries increase. In conversations with the staff, they are very satisfied with working in a part time program, and the expansion to a five hour school day allows them to maintain their afternoon commitments.

You may be wondering why just expand by one hour when we could just run a full time program? There are two reasons: first of all, we want to retain our outstanding teaching staff! They are committed to a part-time schedule and we want to support that. Second, there is a deeper reason; in keeping with our child centered philosophy, we believe that young children thrive in a shorter program in relation to their attention spans, energy levels, and more. A forty hour school week is asking quite a bit from a small child. Along with that, teachers can provide a higher quality of interaction in a part time program. There are certainly full time programs that do provide high quality care, and there are good options for families who choose that path. At FUMP, our philosophy is rooted in child-centered decision making for programming and we feel that continuing this path is best for our program.

FUMP’s proposed hours of operation would run from 9am-2pm, Before School Care (BSC) would run from 8:15-9:00am, and After School Care would run from 2:00-2:45. There would be no After School Care on Fridays to allow for staff meetings.

Along with this change in hours, we would begin a school wide rest time, after the noon meal, as required by child care licensing. For our younger children who take longer naps, they would have a full rest time. In our older classes, there would be a rest time that is age-appropriate with quiet activities (books, puzzles, etc.). Infants would remain in our responsive care model, napping as their needs present. After School Care would evolve into more of a gross motor/learning center time.

Our FUMP treasurer has run a model with proposed tuition rates for a five hour program and they are posted below. You will see the increase in the tuition rate in the grid below to account for the one hour increase. The hourly cost to you for a five hour program is still the same as it is now – between $6-8 per hour, even with our low child to teacher ratios.

In the survey, there are additional questions related to the increase in days, such as your proposed schedule, and more. Please share your impressions of this change so that we can fully explore this proposal.

Reminder: This is an exploratory exercise and we would need a significant number of parents desire this change to make it happen. Your participation in this survey is crucial to our evaluation process.

Please complete the survey below by WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21 and feel free to reach out with any questions that you may have.  As we are evaluating this option, we will communicate the plans moving forward. Please note that school year registration will begin on February 3 to allow time for this proposal to reach its conclusion. Thank you!

Monthly Tuition Rates

You may take the survey below or use this link to open the survey in a new window: PARENT SURVEY FOR INCREASED HOURS