As a new parent at FUMP, you may wonder what will be discussed at this parent conference. We are not giving out grades or report cards, so why are we meeting? What is covered in a parent conference for a young child?

Here are some of the goals of the Parent-Teacher Conferences at FUMP.

First and foremost, it is our teacher’s chance to learn more from you about your child. While we have gotten to know your child, it is an excellent opportunity to gain insight into parents’ views of their child’s experience thus far.

Secondly, teachers will be sharing information about your child’s development. At this point in the school year, the teachers have been observing your child’s development in each of the five domains: cognitive, physical, social, emotional, and language development. Each teacher is familiar with the developmental milestones for your child’s age and uses that knowledge to observe your child. Teachers are identifying your child’s strengths and areas for growth for the remainder of the school year and into the future. Teachers will be sharing their observations at the conference.

In some cases, teachers may discover that a child’s development does not align with the expected developmental milestones. Or perhaps, they are exhibiting behavior in the classroom environment that you do not see at home. If that is the case, the teacher may bring up an outside evaluation from a child development specialist. We consider our teachers experts on child development and hope you take action from their recommendations. As always, please let us know if you have additional questions.

If you are interested in additional resources for parents, please check out our PARENT RESOURCES page for local organizations and agencies.

March is here – and looks to be an exciting month at FUMP. We will have the Austin Public Library storyteller here for stories and songs this Friday, along with Chapel with Ms. Lara.

Summer registration will begin on March 23 at 10am.  Check out our summer hours/calendar here: https://www.fumpaustin.org/calendar-newsletter/calendar/

Reminder: Pick up time is 12:45 -1:00. We highly recommend that you plan to arrive on campus at 12:45, so that hiccups like traffic issues do not hinder your arrival. Our teachers do have after school duties and commitments to attend to each day.  Thanks for your mindfulness for on time pick ups.

Tuition is due by Friday. Please note that if your child is returning for the 2020 school year, there is a registration fee added to your invoice.

School Portraits are the first week of APRIL, not this week. Hold on to those fancy outfits for one more month!

The next segment in our parent education series will be held at Tarrytown Baptist CDO: Picky Eaters and Developmental Red Flags.

What a wonderful Music Festival on Friday! Thank you to all of our families who came and celebrated and danced!! What fun. The crafts and activities were a hit and Mr. Will was wonderful with the children. It takes the time and talents of many people to pull off this event, and I am so thankful. Thank you to our set up crew: Eric Ford, Lani Adebanjo and Kristen Thurman. Also thanks to our cupcake crew: Jacob Hendrickson, Shelby Walter and Carly Criscoe. Thank you to our wonderful teachers who assisted in the activities and the clean up. There are photos and videos on our social media accounts, thanks to Ms. Keely! Check them out. 

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