Hoboken Childcare Site Matches Parents with School Board-Approved Sitters

The qualities that make for a successful educator — experience, professionalism, excellent communication skills and a friendly but firm approach — are not surprisingly the same traits that parents prize in a babysitter.

Yet it hasn’t always been simple for parents to find a local sitter with serious teaching chops or an extraordinary teacher available to babysit on the weekend, over the summer or after a long day in the classroom.

Hoboken resident Allison Bartels is hoping to change that.

In April, Bartels, a middle school teacher who babysits on the side, launched “A Brighter Mile”, a website that connects Hoboken parents with local sitters who are school board approved.

“I was really trying to provide parents with the best people to watch their children,” Bartels said over a recent chat at Bwe Kafe, the uptown Hoboken coffee shop where she screens prospective sitters. “If you can’t watch your children or your parents can’t do it or someone in your family, who’s the next best candidate? The people that spend eight hours a day with kids.” 

The site currently has a registry of 50 local teachers, coaches and tutors for parents to choose from, based on their child’s needs. All sitters have experience in the education field, are backed by a board of education and live or work in Hoboken.

Parents can search the site for a sitter who meets their exact specifications — from general availability, degrees attained and subjects taught to more specialized needs like educators who are certified to teach special education or are trained as speech therapists or school psychologists.

“It’s a wide range of qualifications that they have, it’s really never-ending,” Bartels said. “There’s really something for everyone, birth to 12th grade.” 

In addition to easing the search process for parents looking for competent childcare, the site also affords teachers, many of whom tutor or babysit on the side, an outlet to find consistent, local gigs with families who value their expertise.

“What the teachers find is that, ‘Hey, I can go on one site that really appreciates my qualifications and my degree,’” Bartels said. “The only other options for the teachers are to go on a site that anybody else can go on — someone who just has babysitting experience, for instance. And there’s a difference between someone who has really invested their life in education and someone who just has babysitting experience.”

Bartels personally screens every sitter candidate and requests they provide a resume, credentials and references as part of the application process. She also insists that all potential sitters are board approved, meaning they’ve been background-checked and certified by a board of education.

“If a parent calls me and says, ‘Well, what can you tell me about Ashley?’ I can pull my file out on Ashley and tell you where she went to college, what her certifications are, what her qualifications are,” Bartels said.

Parents who visit the site are free to peruse a general list of approved educators, but must pay a membership fee — $29 per month, $119 for six months or $199 per year — for access to more detailed information like the sitter’s picture, name and contact information. For the time being, approved sitters, tutors and coaches are not required to pay for their own listings on the site. 

In addition to fostering relationships between local parents and teachers, Bartels said she’d like to get the entire community involved by holding a variety of social and educational gatherings.

This Wednesday, for instance, A Brighter Mile partnered with Hoboken Mommies, a social networking site for Hoboken mothers, to hold a sitter social at City Bistro where members were invited to socialize and meet with sitters. On Aug. 5, A Brighter Mile will host a CPR class at City Baptist Church, located at 726 Jefferson St. 

Bartels said she also has sitters in the process of planning community projects like book clubs, information sessions on the state’s anti-bullying law and seminars to educate the parents of children who have special needs.

Reviews of the site have been extremely positive thus far, and Bartels said she’s already fielded requests from parents who want her to expand the service to Bergen and Westchester counties.

While the teacher-turned-entrepreneur said she’s intrigued at the possibility, she wants to ensure A Brighter Mile maintains its close-knit, community if it grows beyond Hoboken.

“I couldn’t just take it to New York City because that’s not in my philosophy,” Bartels said. “I would have to be in a certain community of New York City or a certain community of Westchester or Bergen County.”

For more information on A Brighter Mile, visit its website at abrightermile.com.