BAM: Morning Care and/or Carpools for Drop Off?
We’re very interested in BAM but realizing the later start time could be tricky with getting to work. Is LEARNS fairly easy to get into for morning care? Or are carpools fairly common? For TK next year if that matters.
Jan 25, 2025
Parent Replies
I'm a BAM parent to a current first grader and will also have a TK kid there next year, and we love the school. LEARNS is pretty tough to get into, both for before and after school, just due to staffing shortages, unless you are lower income or are experiencing some other challenging circumstances, in which case I believe you get preference. In general, I'd recommend setting up a backup plan for after care in particular, either through the JCC (which picks up kids and walks them over to the JCC after BAM dismissal), New School, or another after school program. I don't personally know anyone who does a carpool, but if you knew another BAM family near where you live, or met someone in the first few weeks of school (there is an all-school directory that gets shared in Sept), I'm sure it could be a possibility. And don't forget about the bus! My kid takes the bus every morning, which picks up at 8:30, so that's 30 minutes of "childcare" that I don't pay for! If you're outside a 1.5 mile radius of the school, your student qualifies for bus service. Best of luck!!
Hi, we were in the same predicament last year. We were lucky to get a spot in the morning LEARNS program. However, I pulled out kid ten days in when my partner and I witnessed one of the LEARNS teachers yelling at a group of students. My kid told me later that teacher also yelled at him the previous week. I did report to the school and the district, but to my knowledge that teacher is still there.
We loved everything about BAM except for that program.