What "full day" really means in child care

Ask for the closing time as a number, because "full day" is not a defined term and programs use it for schedules that end at lunchtime. If you work, three questions decide everything: what time the doors lock, whether the program runs through the summer, and what happens on the days the schools close and your office does not.

Where the phrase goes wrong

A church preschool running nine until noon, or nine until two, is a genuinely good thing: a morning of structure with people who know your child. Calling it "full day" is not usually dishonest; it is longer than the half-day session it replaced. But if you start at eight and finish at five, a program that ends at two is not child care. It is a lesson you have to leave work to collect a child from, and then find someone for the rest of the afternoon.

In Frederick County the line is sharp. Most of the commercial centers open at 6:30 and close at 6:00 or 6:30. Most of the church programs run a morning and close for the summer. Both are good at what they are. Only one of them lets two parents work.

The five questions that settle it

1. What time do the doors open, and what time do they lock? Numbers, not adjectives.
2. What is the late fee, when does it start, and how is it handled: a quiet line on the bill, or a lecture at the door?
3. How many days a year are you closed, and which ones? Ask for the list and count them.
4. Do you run through the summer, and is it the same staff in the same room? A summer camp run by different people in a different building is a different program.
5. What happens on a school snow day, a two-hour delay, or a teacher training day?

The Frederick County calendar, specifically

Frederick County Public Schools close for weather more often than most offices do, and when they close, so do the programs that run inside school buildings. A center that is not a school does not have to follow that calendar, but many quietly do, and you will not find out until the first snow. So ask three questions in a row: what do you do on an FCPS snow day, what do you do on a two-hour delay, and what do you do on a professional day when the schools are closed and the roads are clear? The right answer to the third is "we are open," without hesitation.

If you have a school-age child as well, ask whether before- and after-school care becomes whole-day care on a snow day. That is the day you need it most and the day it is hardest to find.

For what it is worth, here is our plan: an FCPS snow day is not our snow day. We open unless the roads are genuinely unsafe for our own staff, decide by 5:30 in the morning, and text every family either way. A two-hour delay changes nothing; the doors open at 6:30.

Summer

The June scramble is the part nobody warns you about. A program that closes for the summer means finding ten weeks of something else for a three-year-old, every year, and the something else is usually a camp built for older children. Ask whether the program runs all year, and ask whether July looks like October, with the same teachers, the same room and the same routine, or whether it is a different thing wearing the same name.

What to do about it

Get on more than one list, early. Ask each program where you sit and whether the list moves in September only or all year round. When a program's hours nearly work, ask whether they run before- and after-care as a separate thing; sometimes the answer is yes and nobody put it on the website. And if you find a place you love that closes at 5:30, do the arithmetic honestly before you sign: a half hour short every day is not a small thing over three years.

Rules change, and so do programs. Before you rely on anything here, check it with the Maryland State Department of Education's Office of Child Care, or ask the center to show you.

We are opening a full-day Christian center in Frederick County. We are not licensed yet and cannot offer a place, but you can join our list and hear first.