Teachers shouldn't have to choose between their students and their own children.
We offer free childcare for school employees during teacher work days so they don't have to.
When I first started working for Friendswood ISD in 2014, I was impressed that Friendswood High School offered to babysit the children of campus employees on days where employees were expected to be at work, but students were not at school, or during evening activities when daycares were closed or schools were out of session. This benefit was a huge draw for me to work for Friendswood ISD, knowing I would likely be having a child relatively early in my employment. We do not have family around to help us stand in the gap during professional development days, and babysitters are not cheap.
The year after I had my son, they announced Open House for Friendswood High School. My husband was working a turnaround in the plants, which meant he was working 14-hour days and would not be able to stay home with our child so that I could be present.
Finding a babysitter is always a bit of a hassle, especially on a school night.
Quickly after the Open House dates and times were announced, school leaders let us know that a couple of teachers and several student volunteers would provide childcare during the event, even for my young child. What a relief! What joy! It made going to Open House relatively stress-free and semi-enjoyable.
Three years later, I left full-time employment after I had my second child. I worked as a contractor writing grants for FISD and returned to the district as a part-time employee at admin. After COVID, I returned to the high school as a full time teacher. When the first teacher work day rolled around, I assumed they still had volunteers who watched our kids on those days, but I was wrong and was left scrambling. To pay a babysitter for a full day of work with three kids costs me $135. Instead of paying that, I would often use a PTO day because it was incredibly difficult for me to fork over that money as frequently as we had teacher work days.
Choosing to care for my kids myself meant missing out on critical curriculum building, team-building, and grading time that I really needed.
Since I used PTO days in this way, that left me with less PTO days for when my daughter was critically ill in the Pediatric ICU, which meant I ran out of paid days and was docked pay due to my child’s severe illness. The gaps created by public education laws and policies leave many public educators facing complex, nuanced, and interconnected issues that are impossible to solve on an individual level.
Providing Teachers with Better Options
This is why, in addition to increasing teachers’ paid time off to care for dependents, it is critical that we provide free childcare to school district employees when school is not in session.
No parent should have to choose between being there for their kid in the ICU and earning a salary for working full time.
Parents for Public Education believes strongly in attacking this problem from multiple angles. We provide the service of childcare right now while communicating the need to expand teachers’ dependent care days to lawmakers.
We hosted our first “Teacher Kid Camp” within weeks of our inception, and our second one a couple of months later. We set up locations and volunteered our time and resources to ensure educators in our community know their own children are as important to us as the kids they serve. The need for this service is so great, we have already outgrown the space generously provided to us by The Harbor Church and are making different plans for our next Teacher Kid Camp.
Graciously, Kid City in Friendswood, in partnership with Parents for Public Education, has offered to step in and provide free childcare to Friendswood ISD employees on teacher work days for the 2025-2026 school year, including the week before school starts. This is provided completely free to Friendswood ISD employees. Parents for Public Education, through our generous donors, will fund the cost of meals to your children while there, so all you have to do is register and show up.
We would love to expand our Teacher Kid Camp offerings from our own school district to as many others as we can.
We would love to expand our Teacher Kid Camp offerings from our own school district to as many others as we can. If you are a childcare center and are interested in donating spots in your classes for kids of educators on teacher work days and the week before school starts, please contact us. In addition, if you or your teenage kids enjoy spending time with little ones and would be interested in volunteering babysitting time for Open House or other similar events, please contact us.
Find Out More About Teacher Kid Camp
