Welcome to the 2021 – 2022 school year! Kids’ Time is excited to see so many returning faces after more than a year of missing you. We’re also happy to see a ton of new kiddos joining the Kids’ Time program. 

So much has changed in the last 18 months, I thought taking a quick second to update you on the happenings in Kids’ Time would be a great way to kick off our very first, super fantastic newsletter. 

First, for those who do not know me, I’m Danielle Moss, the former Kids’ Time billing specialist, now Kids’ Time program director. I joined Kids’ Time in 2019 and couldn’t be more excited to be in this new role. The Kids’ Time before-and-after school child care program has always been a joint partnership between the Bellevue Public Schools and the Bellevue Public Schools Foundation, which raises money to help fill funding gaps for programs outside the district budget. 

When I joined Kids’ Time, BPS handled the day-to-day operations and most of the back-end management support. The Foundation served as the financial benefactor and oversight of the program, meaning, the BPS Foundation managed the Kids’ Time budget and used proceeds from Kids’ Time tuition (along with corporate sponsorships and individual donations) to fund programs that benefited students and teachers throughout the district like classroom grants for teachers and scholarships for graduating seniors (and so much more). It had operated in that fashion since Kids’ Time started. 

In July 2020, the BPS Foundation took over the day-to-day operations of Kids’ Time and I jumped into the role of program director. It goes without saying, summer 2020 was a turbulent time for everyone not knowing what the school year would look like due to COVID-19 and taking on a bigger management role of Kids’ Time was a rollercoaster ride. 

Throughout the school year, we worked to offer online Kids’ Time registration and digital forms to make the registration process easier to manage for both parents and internal staff. We centralized communication, implemented a new email system and added a Kids’ Time Facebook page to help share Kids’ Time news, important information and some fun stuff too quicker and more directly. We know these enhancements are not fail proof. Not everyone is on Facebook and email blockers continue to create roadblocks to getting our messages to everyone, but we’ve seen a TON of good things come from these updates. 

As we moved into 2021, we began gearing up for a return to full capacity at Kids’ Time. We hired nearly 50 new staff members and registered more than 900 students between the summer and fall programs within five months. Whoa. Processing that much data takes time and we appreciate everyone’s patience while we worked out some kinks sending and receiving paperwork with caregivers/parents and finalizing registration documents needed for DHHS compliance.

We are thrilled to have nearly 800 students using the Kids’ Time program this year. In our monthly newsletter we’ll share some of the stimulating STEM and STEAM based curriculum elements Kids’ Time site leaders incorporate into the program, you’ll get to know tenured staff who you’ve seen around for years, as well as new support staff and we’ll also feature our students as much as possible showing off the fun things they are doing. 

We have so much to share with you in the coming months — we hope you enjoy! Thank you, thank you, thank you for being an integral part of Kids’ Time!

Dani Moss

Kids’ Time program director