questions about how often others have new families.
I only have an opening about once every two years. I'm curious to know how much turnover others have. I'm wondering if mine is normal or if I'm the odd man out.

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I have an opening once every year in September when my older kids go off to pre-k. Otherwise I have had one family divorce and the child moved away.

I am pretty upfront with families that I prefer and offer spots only to long term families so if they are thinking of putting a child in pre-school at 2 years old, this is no the place for them. I like to get kids as infants and keep them until they are 4 and ready for pre-k. It is better for my entire group to be consistent.

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My turn over rate has been pretty high as I give preference to military families. So, they change bases a lot in most cases. Civilian families I tend to have longer though.

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I'm like breezy, I live in an area with alot of military, so I have turn over during normal military PCS seasons. About half of my available slots are usually military. All the others I have had long term 2-4 years. That is part of the reason I dont really do school agers any more. They were constantly changing every year in June and September.

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I only have new families once in a very long while. Usually I have a wait list and those on a wait list come as drop-ins whenever I have an empty space (if a regular is off or on vacation).

By the time my wait list family is able to start full time, they aren't really new anymore since they have been coming periodically the whole time they've been waiting.

The only time I can transistion a wait list family into full time care is if one of my regulars goes off to Kindergarten. A couple years ago, I lost 5 kids at once to Kindy and this year only one will go so it is different every year

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My enrollment varies. Sometimes because of kindergarten and more often because I take state pay and 50% get terminated because of non-payment. Good families stay forever with me utilizing my care over summer vacay and date nights. I have some second generation and others that are here for a semester while mom takes a class.

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I've had a lot of turnover in the last 2 years. I've had 4 families leave in the last 2 years for various reasons and I replaced them fairly quickly. One DCM was laid off last year and was unable to find work after a month so she had to stay home with her kids, another family split up and DCM couldn't afford childcare on her own and because of the shortage of subsidy she had to switch DCB to a DC center through a scholarship (but I still care for him as drop-in every once in a while) and the other family that I lost was a replacement for DCB that went to DC center but that didn't last more than the initial 2 week trial period. Girl would scream nonstop (she had never been in group care) and I couldn't take it. My fourth family was for a 4yo boy that was to start kinder last august and his new baby sibling was to start in his place the same month. DCM went on maternity leave last July and her first day on leave she got a call from her job and they laid her off. She still hasn't been able to find work so she's a SAHM now too. I havn't lost anyone since then.

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I normally have 2 openings every two years because of the limit of 2 under 2 at any given time. Sometimes it's longer than two years between openings, depending on whether anyone leaves to go to full day preschool. I encourage that, but they don't always take me up on it .

Every once in a great while I will take an older child, by referral only, and that throws a monkey wrench into the whole two year cycle.

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Since I'm only 2-5y most only leave when they start K5. So I do have new kids every year.

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