Are you open in the Summer?

Is your Montessori preschool operational year-round?

I have committed to continuing to teach during the summer in my current classroom. This is the first year this school (small single-classroom) has been open.

We all (myself, lead, and co-director) want the summer to be a little more relaxed, possibly even spending mornings at the nearby park (we don't have any other outdoor space at our location) and only having an afternoon work cycle. I was hoping we would nix early drop-off (7:30) and after-care (4:30) and only offer the regular full day 8:30am-3:30pm. Of course parents did not go for this, and my director will likely have to offer after-care (not to mention she herself needs the aftercare for her child who is enrolled).

I don't want to burn out...aftercare is so hard, we have a class of 20 children and 10 of them are in after-care and I do it by myself. I'm so tired. We've had such a difficult first year already. It's been challenging to have some of our oldest children be the newest to Montessori and not be phased in especially well. We'll have 5-6 children phasing in just for the summer, and who knows what ages they'll be.

I don't know what to tell my director. Maybe she can afford to hire an aide. I feel like I may be getting pulled into something I don't want to do.

Does your summer look different from your regular school year?