Every Day is Mother's Day. . . A Happy Child Care Story!

 "Every day is Mother's Day," I was always told by my mom.  Well, in the good old days,  every day was not Mother's Day for working moms.  Daycare was in its infancy when I went back to work for the Teaneck Public Schools in 1974 and it wasn't until more women entered the work force that child care initiatives made life a little easier.  In Teaneck, some enterprising women created what was probably the first on-site school age child care program before and after the regular school day.  Linda Disken began her Teaneck teaching career (she is now at Hawthorne School), as the director of that first program in Bryant School.

Some years later, Teaneck Schools Superintendent Harold Morris and the Board of Education enthusiastically endorsed my idea for a school vacation program, to be offered, for a reasonable fee, when the public schools were closed.  My children were grown, but, oh, I remembered the trials of school recesses, when the only options for a working woman were:  beg a grandma to take the kids, find a babysitter for a week, or stay home from work.  And so, Camp Kookooskoos was born - and named - during the first April session, by a 4th grader who took it from the E.B. White Book, Trumpet of the Swans.  The winning entry had been selected by a majority of the 46 K-6 kids (now in their 20's!), who attended that first session.  The program continued and grew, offering a safe, nurturing, camp-like environment for elementary school children during those weeks off in December, February, and April.  After several years, the idea was expanded to include a six-week summer program with before- and after-care options.  All of these were, and are, paid programs run by the Teaneck Community Education Center under the caring and capable direction of Karen Yucht.  Summer Camp K is open to non-residents as well as residents, and it provides, as promised, "the best of all possible worlds."  This proud founding mother (retired from the schools, not from motherhood) recommends it highly!  Happy Mother's Day - every day.