Saturday, March 29, 2008

What about kids?

Let's use this post to talk about the needs of kids: homeschooling, daycare and after-school tutoring.

11 comments:

PrincessMax said...

We talked about a day care center in our last meeting, saying that we wanted to designate space in the building and outsource the actual management of it. This has two benefits:
1. We don't have the complicated responsibility for day care; only that of landlord.
2. Day cares are one of the only businesses that make money in Lawndale. We would be supported the local economy.

Does anyone think it's feasible to get a donor to pay for the creation of the space if we emphasize #2?

mrs metaphor said...

Well, we homeschool...and I guess when I consider what kinds of needs we might have for the space it's a bit hard to place. What might be helpful (not just for homeschool but for a variety of uses) would be some sort of "community room" that would be available for the residents to use.

For us it would be great because we could do homeschool gatherings/meetings/invite speakers. Basically a nice multipurpose room would be awesome and if we're talking about intentional community then it seems a necessity in fact. lol.

My kids are still pretty small so if there was greenspace and some playground equipment that would be awesome.

Regarding daycare...again, I think that perhaps what you do is have the space available and have whomever feels led to do something like this be the one to spearhead it. Don't spend money to build out a space for it until someone steps into the gap so to speak.

jeffwelsh said...

I'm long past child rearing age and I did mine in the hinterland, ie not urban, but I really want the place to be filled with kids, lots of kids. So what do we need to make it a great environment for kids. My kids had pets, all kind of pets. I especially liked the chickens and ducks. Well, yeh, I'm a little off center. I was thinking of slides from floor to floor but when I mentioned this to our arcitect last night, she just rolled her eyes and changed the subject. I haven't given up on that but I think it's a code issue.

kediger said...

We don't have kids yet but when we do we're planning to send them to public school, so no needs there except it would be great to have a play space where we could share toys/videos/puzzles so that we all didn't have to buy those things. Perhaps the play area could be used for an after-school program for neighborhood kids with parents that work. Also I would imagine that a homeschool area could also work for a tutoring area.

kediger said...

Jeff, we have dogs and lots of them so you can just send kids over to us to play with our animals :)

jeffwelsh said...

Looks like we're going to have lots of dogs. We've got a really cool, natural dog run on a fenced in railroad siding on the North side of the building. Anybody remember the days when dogs were free raoming? Oh, I'm sorry, this blog site was about kids. Princess...need to start another spot for animals.

mrs metaphor said...

I'm just hoping there will be a couple of really nice people who like to babysit in the building...lol. Right now we're in a very rural area of TN and it's like pulling teeth to get a sitter. ack.

kediger said...

metaphor, if we're there, count on us for babysitting...I love it (and I know maybe you can reciprocate when we have kids) :) Prices for babysitting are outrageous. I'd rather just share that responsibility, if we're going to be a community and all

David said...

After school programs can be a good way to bring the community in. It might be a good idea to think of the kinds of activities kids will participate in and then see what kind of space is required. And I don't think it really makes a difference if the children are homeschooled or attend public or private schools. What if we had a room with some desks and computers for internet access. This could be used as a "homework" room by kids when they get home from school. This would be a different place than a common play area. The focus and vibe of the room would be more like a library. Just thinking.....

jeffwelsh said...

I'm going to try and draw Dave Clark into the discussion about after school programing. I'm on the board of his 501c3 'Intrsct" totally awesome after school program. Dave, are you out there??

Anonymous said...

intentional community?
send you kids to the school in the community.
A day care?
Dog run?
playground?

PLEASE. WHite people coming in and trying to get land in the ghetto for cheap and passing it off as some intentional spiel.
If thats what you gotta do to feel good about yourself.