We also have students from the local high school provide childcare for our meetings. They are in the National Honor Society too. We have meetings once per month and two students come and watch the children in the school's art room. (Lots of stuff to color in there.) We try to keep the meetings to an hour. Also at the end of the school year, I get gift cards from Pizza Hut or Domino's so that the whole group can have a pizza party/lunch on us and to thank them for providing the childcare [img]smile.gif[/img]

This year we have contacted the local high school's National Honor Society members. They do the child care for service hours. It is great because we do not have to pay and the students get the hours. In fact, all the elementary PTO's in our district do this. Just contact the staff member at your high school who is in charge of the National Honor Society. We had six members come for our first meeting, but need only a few for the remaining of the year!! Good luck. I hope this helps!

We have a babysitting committee. One person chairs it and anyone who requires a babysitter is urged to join the committee, that way each person watches the children only once and only misses one meeting. the chairperson makes a shedule for the entire year, and that way if a date doesn't work for someone, they have plenty of time to switch with someone else.

Funny that this should come up today! Our President's daughter is currently in the hospital and besides worrying about having to run the meeting by myself for the first time tomorrow night, the daughter is also our babysitter for our meetings, so I had to find a replacement for her. I got the teenage son of another parent. We also pay $10 per meeting and provide a snack for the kids. We usually only have 4-7 kids in the babysitting room anyway.

We had problems with babysitting last year. This year we established a committee to help with this problem. Currently, we are hiring 7th-8th graders of our middle school - they are in our same district- to provide babysitting services. We hire 2 per meeting and have around 15 children usually. In order to make sure we have someone to watch our children, we pay the students $10.00 per meeting each. Since our meetings are under 2 hours, that is a good part-time income for the middle school students. We have strict protocols for the students to adhere to. If we have a problem, then we simply don't ask that student to return. We have each parent sign-in all children and sign them out when picking them up. We also provide them a snack. So far, so good!

Since your principal is ultimately responsible for what happens at the school, you have to play by their rules. Our biggest problems have been finding reliable help, because we were asked to hire adults not use other children, and how to handle when parents show up with their whole daycare of children. Honestly, if you feel this is something your group can't live without, try to work something out so that parents are taking turns watching children at their houses and going to meetings or asking a local childcare provider to stay open late for your meetings and letting parents drop their children off there.