I am having to make a decision regarding my preschool and be ready to submit it to my board by Wednesday. We are on spring break this week, but resume school next week. I am a director at a half-day, church-affiliated preschool in Austin. We serve ages 2-Kindergarten and are considered part-time. We are only open 9-1 and the only class that attend all 5 days is our Kindergarten. I say that 95% of my families do not use us for daycare because of a job.

We received notice last night that all licensed schools have to start taking the temperature of every staff member and student that walks through the door. They also told us that parents need to drop off outside of the center, unless we deem it necessary for them to come in, in which they will need their temp checked as well.

I have had multiple parents reach out that they plan on completely pulling their kids the remainder of the year and some say they are at a minimum, not coming back after spring break and are going to play it by ear.

I have reached out to local directors and am waiting to hear back.

Will any of you that have children in a preschool similar to mine, respond with what communication you are getting from your school and what you are personally going to do?

I have to look at both sides here. As a parent I would opt to keep my kids home for a while, but I also have teachers that need a paycheck. We are non-profit, so we are limited on how long we can pay our teachers without tuition coming in.

Thanks so much for your response.

My kids attend a very similar program on the outskirts of Austin. I would send my kids. We have not received any communication from them.

I suspect they will close, only because all the teachers are basically stay at home moms and will have their kids at home if public schools close. They follow other school closures like ice days for that same reason.

do you have enough rooms and space to have more - but smaller - classrooms? Perhaps you could offer help to health care workers' kids.

I dropped my toddlers off this morninn at day care. They made them take their shoes off and leave them outside. I could not enter the building. Needless to say it was a **** show for mine when I had to take their rain boots off. They love their rain boots.

We could open, if I have staff that are willing to come in. I only have three families that this impacts as most of our mom are stay-at-home.

I am a teacher at a part-time church preschool just like yours here in Austin. We haven't heard anything yet as we're also on spring break this week, but I'm hoping we hear something after AISD's press conference today.

Edited to add that we follow AISD so the decision will most likely be made for us.

Our preschool made the decision to return March 30, barring any direction by the Health & Human Services department to close further.

Our daycare is open, but we aren't sending our kids. Daycares are human sized Petri dishes. Those kids stick their hands everywhere, and if anyone catches anything there it quickly spreads to everyone. The kids may not be strongly affected by Covid, but they seem like ideal carriers. And caring for health care workers' kids in a setting like that seems like a great way to infect the parents and keep them sidelined from caring for the sick.

Forcing the healthcare workers to stay home and care for their kids seems like a great way to keep them sidelined from caring for the sick.

I have kids that go to two day cares
One is closed ( church based) and one is not

Agmom95, I'm curious what your preschool has decided to do in the upcoming weeks? We're obviously closed while AISD is, but haven't heard what the plan will be if they move to online learning after April 3rd.

Ours are going and it's been seamless. Drop off, take temp, they go in.

Sent you a PM. Our daycare in round rock is still open, but we kept our son home today and we're going to more or less self isolate for a while. Rather be safe than sorry I suppose.

Got an email yesterday from my sons daycare. They have been closed this week and are considering opening back up next week if enough kids are needing to go. I work in a hospital and my husband is currently working from home. The unit I work should not have any cases of COVID and we have a very strict visitor policy in place right now. My son would only go on days that I work which is 3 days at most because my husband can't get his work done if he's alone with our toddler. We have no family around to help.

They have not announced new drop off protocol but I'm sure parents won't be allowed in.

We have been following what the Leander and Round rock districts are doing. We opted to close, instead of staying open for the very few that just wanted to bring their kids in, but did not need to. The majority of our moms and dads are single-income famlies. I did a survey of my parents and none of them feel safe coming back at this time. We are hoping for a May 4 opening. We will see. Taking a financial hit for sure. My teachers have been sending ideas, doing Zoom sessions, doing facetime calls to keep connected with our families.

Are you still charging? The church preschool I send my kids to were going to prorate part of April with the expectation we would go back April 6 (PFISD). That's obviously not happening but they haven't gotten back to us with what they will expect payment wise.

I am keeping the kids home with me and my wife (we both are working from home) and still paying our regular tuition as our livelihoods have not been impacted. I dont know when we will send them back. After Easter, maybe?

Does anyones kid go to Primrose in CS? If so are they refunding if we hold our kid out for another 2 weeks?

The daycare we use in Coppell closed today. Another in Coppell also closed

Our daycare was great with communication. Unfortunately they were forced to close at least for a week because only 10 kids were going to be there (including 2 of mine) out of ~170ish. We had a great conversation with the owner on Tuesday. They are keeping detailed notes of who was and wasn't coming over the last couple of weeks and will issue credits for that time and the time that they are closed.

It's an Aggie owned and operated daycare as well.

Daycare in DFW open, primarily for kids of healthcare professionals and first responders. Neither wife or I are in those but they have room and gladly accepted our kid. And we're glad to take him. We are being smart, but decided to simply not live in fear.

The way we have always done tuition is state that we are a private preschool and we charge a yearly tuition. We then provide families the opportunity to pay out that tuition monthly. The majority of our parents do that. We require a deposit at registration that is 1/9 of the tuition. That become the May tuition payment.


We did not refund the one week in March we missed, but we are not going to charge for April.
I know some schools are pro-rating if they go back on the 4/13 which is the end of the shelter in place in Austin. (for now). We are opting to stay closed for April. We have no families wanting to come back.

We have the May 2020 deposits sitting in our account. If we have school, then that will be their monthly installment. If we do not, we will refund that deposit.

Being a non-profit means no tuition in, no way to pay expenses. However, we have a nice buffer in our account, and we are finding ways to cut back by cancelling services we don't need, I have taken a reduced salary for a time, the church is allowing us to cut our payment in half to them for the time being, etc.

Our parent handbook lays out bad weather scenarios and closings for unforeseen circumstances, but clearly this is uncharted territory.

I think schools should refund families or let the families pay a reduced rate to hold the spot.

Our preschool has not notified about plans past 4/3. They did say that if they stay closed, tuition could be paid as a donation on our taxes (church based preschool). We probably will continue to pay as the kid loves going there and I would want any future kids to be able to go there.

We just notified our parents. It seems like a lot of preschools are watching what their local districts are doing. I bet yours is waiting for that.

I love the donation idea. I'm sure that many of our families would be willing. We are celebrating our 20th anniversary and I have been a part of it for 17 years. I feel the same way, as both of my boys went to our school. I think it is great you feel that way about your school! What a lovely idea.

What are your teachers doing to try and make up the income? Lots of those teachers need everything they can get.

Interesting, thanks for that info!

We pay monthly, no advances on registration. I'm okay giving up March and expected that. I have two kids there, one who ages out this year. I'd be okay paying my youngest daughter's tuition to hold her spot and "withdrawing" my older daughter. Or paying half for both. We'll see what they say. I know in our first email they said the board of directors of the church was going to help out the teachers as well (I'm assuming covering any shortfalls from proration). It's a really tough spot to be in for everyone.

agmom95 said:

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I am having to make a decision regarding my preschool and be ready to submit it to my board by Wednesday. We are on spring break this week, but resume school next week. I am a director at a half-day, church-affiliated preschool in Austin. We serve ages 2-Kindergarten and are considered part-time. We are only open 9-1 and the only class that attend all 5 days is our Kindergarten. I say that 95% of my families do not use us for daycare because of a job.

We received notice last night that all licensed schools have to start taking the temperature of every staff member and student that walks through the door. They also told us that parents need to drop off outside of the center, unless we deem it necessary for them to come in, in which they will need their temp checked as well.

I have had multiple parents reach out that they plan on completely pulling their kids the remainder of the year and some say they are at a minimum, not coming back after spring break and are going to play it by ear.

I have reached out to local directors and am waiting to hear back.

Will any of you that have children in a preschool similar to mine, respond with what communication you are getting from your school and what you are personally going to do?

I have to look at both sides here. As a parent I would opt to keep my kids home for a while, but I also have teachers that need a paycheck. We are non-profit, so we are limited on how long we can pay our teachers without tuition coming in.

Thanks so much for your response.

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ER doctor here

Quarantine yourself and your children. Best thing for yourself and the greater good.

We are paying our teachers to finish any training hours they have left for the year and to reach out to our families once a week in some way.

We are very fortunate that our teachers are not using this job for primary income. All are using it as secondary income. Many of them were public school teachers at some point, but went to part-time with us once they had their own children. We are blessed for sure.

Yes, this is what we ended up doing. We are closed until at least May 4, maybe longer.

Fenrir said:

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Forcing the healthcare workers to stay home and care for their kids seems like a great way to keep them sidelined from caring for the sick.

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Are any of the parent's are the OP's daycare healthcare workers who rely upon daycare to go to work?

I have two parents who are in the health care field, but work part time. They both reached out and said they would not want to bring their kids into school and had enough help at home if they were needed.

Just an update: our specific preschool has decided to charge the full tuition for April. The teachers are available through Zoom and they've made us packets, but I'm really struggling with that decision.

jopatura said:

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Just an update: our specific preschool has decided to charge the full tuition for April. The teachers are available through Zoom and they've made us packets, but I'm really struggling with that decision.

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As I would be. Parents (most, anyway) send their kids to preschool to have them cared for while they work. They don't care about packets and zoom availability.

We are providing zoom interactions to keep in touch, see friends, do show and tell and just say hi. Our parents have really embraced it.

We are providing developmentally appropriate suggested activities on how you can reinforce preschool skills at home. These are activities many parents already do at home, but don't realize they are actually providing skills. Some also want specific ideas for the four year olds that are easy to pass on depending where they are in their development.

We are not charging parents for this, as it is minimal and not required for those families that don't want to participate. Trying to do preschool beyond that Is really not going to work.

Local districts are even limiting their prek curriculum to 1.5 hours a week online.


We are starting to hear about payroll, mortgage and utility forgiveness loans for small businesses. It may not be necessary to charge full tuition. Maybe partial payment to hold a child's spot?

Doesn't seem fair to charge full tuition and then do zoom sessions and a packet? Doesn't seem equitable.

My three year old attends a school exactly like yours three days a week. As you said was common, we are a single income family so it is no issue for us to have him at home.

Our school has been following the Katy ISD calendar and closure schedule. They have sent out a notice that they won't be charging for April and are trying to ascertain what they can do for the rest of the year.

It's a tough situation for all, hopefully it passes soon.