It’s official; Bright Horizons is coming to West Seattle!!!

[Diane]

Very exciting news, it’s official, Bright Horizons is coming to West Seattle; “world’s leading provider of employer-sponsored child care, back-up care, education and work/life solutions” at the new Link development; I met with directors tonight at grand opening of the gorgeous new Bright Horizons in South Lake Union, and all the wonderful Harbor Properties folks; they all verified that the build out for the new WS Bright Horizons will begin next week, and plan to be completed by Spring; I heard about this “unofficially” from reliable source 6 months ago, but couldn’t get anyone at Bright Horizons to confirm, so kept it under wraps rather than share any info that might not happen; but it is confirmed now; this will be incredible addition to our neighborhood; thanks to Harbor for being so thoughtful and considerate in partnering with community to bring in the best possible businesses to their properties, for mutual benefit

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Links to more info:

http://www.facebook.com/brighthorizons

http://www.brighthorizons.com

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[Ken]

Based on the web site, it is like a yacht, if you have to ask how much it cost, you can’t afford it.

Nice for those who can though.

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[Myr-myr]

Diane, thanks for the information. Great location. I was very impressed with the other Bright Horizons facilities I visited when presenting my company’s educational toys and activities.

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[Diane]

Ken, that’s what I thought when first looking at their website last summer; it’s like a menu without prices, for sure top of the line; but, for families who can afford super high quality, and for families who may work for one of the employer sponsored companies that assist with tuition as part of compensation package, this is incredible addition to our neighborhood; the Mount has had massive waiting list for years, so many (400+) that they closed their wait list couple years ago

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Another huge bonus, Bright Horizons teachers are paid a good wage, with excellent benefits, as most are very experienced & educated; many, like myself, have Masters; many child care centers still pay very low wage for infant/toddler/prek teachers; most still have not figured out a way to pay their teachers a livable wage; Bright Horizons has great longterm record of creating a business model that achieves high standards in all areas

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I worked in child care centers for years, but pay was just way too low to support myself, so 10+ yrs ago, I started doing in-home care (nanny) exclusively, which was better match for my education, skills, experience, with good wage; the downside of being a nanny, it’s rare to get sick time, holiday pay, or any health insurance, and no employment protections

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btw, I applied for infant teacher position at Bright Horizons this past summer, hoping to be one of their teachers when this West Seattle site opens; and I still do on-call/temp nanny care, specialize in infants/toddlers; I do mostly date nights and emergencies like days when schools are closed or families on wait list for daycare

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ps, in early 90’s, I was HR Director for a child development corporation in Palo Alto, CA; we had state of the art child care center at Genentech, our largest; when the contract was up for renegotiation, we lost to this new fangled company, Bright Horizons; that was my introduction; I’ve watched them grow like crazy all over the country, now even international

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Myr-myr, the new SLU site is gorgeous, and only about 1/5 full, so for anyone who may want to check it out; now is excellent time; for West Seattle families who are interested in school here, you can check out the one in SLU to get idea of what is coming here; and for any families who work in SLU (Amazon, Children’s, Gates Foundation, …) please do yourself a favor and check it out; I’ve worked with families with new babies for a zillion years and most wait way too long to research child care options; at most established centers you need to be on wait list as soon as you’re expecting to have any chance of getting in, no matter the cost; this is super rare opportunity for West Seattle families who are expecting or have babies ready to graduate from in-home care to child care center

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Director of SLU is Monique German; she is awesome, super smart, tons of experience; you can contact her for a tour 206-682-0577 or monique.german@brighthorizons.com

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[lohoho]

I work for one of the sponsored companies and still feel that the prices are WAY too high. After touring the eastside facilities, I recommend taking your kids to one of the WS locally owned day cares and preschools. Places like – Ages in Stages, Cottage School and many others offer better care and better prices.

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[Diane]

thanks lohoho for the feedback; I’d love to hear some real numbers, for real comparison; hard to obtain; they wouldn’t tell me when I asked; care to share? And don’t different companies provide varying rates of sponsorship?

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I think it’s great to have multiple options; there are families here where money is not biggest factor in choosing child care; and curious how many of the wonderful locally owned schools have openings; all I ever hear from families is the wait lists are too long, so they’re always scrambling trying to find workable options; they often have to enroll in downtown centers because they can’t get into anything in our neighborhood

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[j]

We looked into sending our infant to a Redmond Bright Horizons. It was $2000 a month.

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[Diane]

thanks j; was that cost before or after employer financial assistance?

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[lohoho]

When I looked in to BH over in Redmond for my then toddler is was $1700/month and higher for when I looked again for my infant son two years ago. That was with the discount. At Ages in Stages, I pay $900 for my two year old. I believe their infant rates are $1100 and one year rates are $1000. Please contact Stacey over there. She has been running her family run daycare for awhile. Cottage School is a wonderful preschool at Gatewood elementary. I paid around $800ish for my oldest son to go there. Waiting lists can be a pain and have experienced them myself. The longest I had to wait was a few weeks. Good luck in your search.

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[SpeakLoud]

And herein lies the problem-you (me and most parents I would assume)want high quality childcare with educated and well paid teachers (because it DOES make a difference) but no one wants to pay for it. Even those who can afford it often complain of the cost and those who can’;t afford it are put in a position of accepting something less. And it’s not that independantly owned programs don;t offer good childcare, there are many that do, but there would be more if the educated and expereinced teachers earned more than $15 an hour-and that’s HIGH pay for many West Seattle childcare programs.

This is a much bigger issue than just the cost of a toddler spot. It’s how our country as a whole determines what is important for healthy communities and families.

The Gates foundation just threw $20 million at Educare to build a building and start a program that they can’t even afford to opperate-and no one can replicate it-but no-one was upset about that-or at least there was no coverage or posts about how sad this is-it’s suppossed to be a ‘model’ center yet their staff turnover rates are as high as any independant center, the kids are tested to insanity and the teachers are so stressed out even with a 3 to 20 ratio.

Oh but there I go getting on my soap box….

Yeah-a really good childcare program is moving into West Seattle! Hopefully it will help with the crappy ones finally having to close their doors…but there I go again!

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[j]

We were looking for daycare for our baby starting this past August. $2000 was for infant care without employer financial assistance. When I think about it more, it could have been $2100. I wonder what employers offer assistance because we hoped Microsoft would, but they do not. We eventually chose a provider who is fantastic that we do receive a discount from our employer. BH is pretty amazing, but for the infant program, they really didn’t do anything remarkable for the extra cost. Their classes even had the same teacher/infant ratio as most daycares. I expected more I guess for the money you are investing. If I remember my tour precisely, they take pride in the low teacher/student ratios as the child grows.

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[tanyar23]

There are some wonderful childcare centers out there. We definitely had to look around and although we weren’t religious, we went with a daycare held in a church. I’d also suggest looking at childcare.org to see what’s available for your family. Some people prefer in home childcare and others like licensed centers. You have to look at what your family values and find the childcare center that reflects that.

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[tanyar23]

Also, check for complaints here:

https://apps.del.wa.gov/check/CheckSearch.aspx

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[add]

Child Care Resources is a great place to check, too. http://childcare.org/

You know, at first $2,000/month sounds crazy, but if you break it down (assuming fulltime care) to 8 hours a day, 5 days a week it equates to $12.50/hour.

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[SpeakLoud]

Actually if you break it down it’s 10 hours a day-once a parent has dropped off their child-gone to work for 8 hours and picked their child up again and that breaks down to $10 an hour. The State ratio is 1 teacher to 4 babies-in any ‘quality’ center you would have at max a 1 to 3 ratio so that’s $30 an hour-that has to cover a decent salary-but it dosn’t-insurance for the center, licensing fees, public health nurse fees, staff training, rent/mortgage, supplies, snack, benefits for the employees-but it rarely does, bleach etc etc etc….there is so much more to consider.

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[SpeakLoud]

At $2,000 a month what makes the most sense is to stay home.

And before you hate on me-lots of people do it!!!

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[mannamc]

At the SODO location, it’s $1100/month for a 3.5 year old with the Starbucks discount. It is definitely a lot, not sure we could have 2 kids in the program. However, they have a great, fresh, diverse menu, and the curriculum is awesome. I like that the school is so big that they can have an entire class of 3 year olds and cater the curriculum to them instead of a smaller place that has a mixed bag of ages, but like I said, not sure if this will be realistic once there is more than 1 kid in the picture.

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[tanyar23]

I’d suggest looking at independent preschools through pnais.org. Accreditation is an amazing process to screen schools. Also, for young ones, NAEYC is another good accreditation process.

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[WSHusky]

Our 4 year old is in his second year at the 4th and Madison location (Pre K.) Can’t say enough great things about the whole experience – West Seattle is very lucky to include Bright Horizon into the community.

We are at a rack rate of $1595

Great thread – love the quality conversation.

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[Diane]

Thanks everyone for all your great insightful contributions to this thread; very helpful

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[Author]

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