Preschools - a vent

[gollygee]

Any other parents here?

My daughter will be going to preschool next year. We have two choices. We can send her to a religious preschool affiliated with a church for about $100 a month, or we can send her to a secular preschool for about $300 a month.

We are sending her to the expensive one.

My question is this: why are church-affiliated preschools so darn cheap?? Are they subsidized by their associated churches?

My friend's daughter goes to the closes church preschool and came home from preschool one day anxious because she thought baby Jesus was in her tummy. So not only are they pushing religion (which is to be expected at a church preschool) they're doing it in a manner that isn't age-appropriate.

There are half a dozen church preschools close to me, and only one that isn't related to a church. Luckily it is a very highly rated preschool so we don't mind spending the extra money anyway.

Why are there so many more church preschools? I know this is a pretty religious area, but there are enough non-religious folks to fill a few preschools I'd think!

Thanks for listening to my rant.

[Az]

1. Religions have a vested interest

in reinforcing their dogma in children. The earlier they get them the better. If a person goes through their childhood without significant indoctrination to a particular belief system they may develop resistance to its ideas. Thus Churches wage battles to keep religion in schools. They make sure private schools are readily accessible. They seek any access to the children they can find.

[trotsky]

2. The benefits of not being taxed.

They've got a massive building with lots of rooms, and they don't pay a dime of property tax on it. And the building itself is paid for with member donations (and may have already been paid off years ago), so you're not having to pay for the center's rent or mortgage. Plus some of their assistants might be church members who volunteer. That'll certainly keep costs down.

Hook 'em young, and you get in a lot deeper.

[onager]

3. My Mom works at one

My mother works at a pre-school attached to a Southern Baptist church in the Buckle On The Bible Belt (Upstate SC). The "benefits" already described certainly apply. No taxes, etc. And in this case, it's a rural area with very few pre-schools available for working parents.

Some of the employees may be volunteers. But Mom and the others I know about are salaried employees. They certainly don't get paid much. Mom is retired and collecting a pension/SS, but she hates sitting around the house and loves kids, so the job was a natural for her.

Here's some irony. These are Southern Baptists, the nice folks who turned me into an atheist. ;-) But once they had a little girl in the class who belonged to some extreme Pentecostal sect that doesn't celebrate Xmas. Or Valentine's Day. Or Easter. (I guess they celebrate religiously, but no Santa Claus or Easter bunnies.) Her mother was constantly in the staff's faces with complaints about the heathen Baptists celebrating pagan holidays in the name of JeeZus.

To its credit, apparently the school does try to be somewhat sensitive to this sort of thing. IOW, the kids aren't proselytized for the whole school day. I know, that's what I would have expected too...

And for the record, the blowhards who want to moralize about those good ol' family-values Red States should visit this pre-school.

In her desk, my mother keeps a sad collection of restraining orders and legal papers preventing one parent or the other from seeing their kids. Some kids have been virtually abandoned by both parents and are being raised by grandparents or other relatives. This is VERY common, even in this bastion of "traditional family values."

One time an estranged father came to the preschool and literally kidnapped his daughter. My mother tried to get between them...the little girl didn't want to go with him and was screaming. She wasn't able to stop him. Fortunately the local cops did. He had planned to take the kid across the state line to his parents in NC.

[Phentex]

4. Yes, this was my experience....

the school paid a nominal fee for use of the building which was part of the church anyway. Even charging the parents less than the average preschool, they made tons of money on the preschool.

[curse10]

5. They have less overhead and pay their teachers less

that's why catholic schools used to be so cheap (nuns work for free!)

[fshrink]

6. All of the above. It's the root of propaganda.

It's the future of their illusion.

[politicat]

7. Depending on state law, they may be subject to fewer legal restrictions.

Private schools (including preschools) can do almost anything they want with their curriculum and staffing decisions in CO. They have to have 1 licensed teacher, and the others are supposed to be going through the licensing process, but really, there's no money to check.... so....

In the non-private schools, however, accreditation is required and observed.

I seem to recall that religious schools were even more exempt than secular private schools, but don't quote me on that.

If there's a UU or UCC preschool, those are good for tolerance and openness and rationality if for some reason the secular school isn't available.

You're a better man than I, Gunga Din. I live in fear that something will happen to my sister and my BIL and make me my niece's guardian. I don't mind helping pay for stuff and sending her to camp and to college, but this Godless/Goddess mother doesn't want those prefixes to go away.

Pcat

[melv]

8. The teachers do not have to be certified...

also, they generally do not serve a lunch and close up shop earlier in the day than most preschools.