Daycares in Boise, ID With Extended Hours
Two Boise centers post the longest weekday hours here: Advantage Early Learning Centers on West Irving Street and New Horizon Academy's West Ustick school, both open 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Noah's Ark Learning Center on Maple Grove Road is the only one open six days a week, though it prints no clock times.
Every center that posts its times opens at 6:30 a.m., so drop-off is not where these differ. Pickup is, by half an hour: the other five close at 6:00. The bigger splits are age and money. Advantage, Trinity and Noah's Ark take children up to 12 years, while both River Academy sites and A Child's Heart stop before school age, so a family with a grade-schooler should look hard at the first group. Five centers take the Idaho Child Care Program subsidy, and Trinity and River Academy's Jennie Lane site do not.
Our picks
- Late pickup for a baby and a grade-schooler: Advantage Early Learning Centers, Boise. Open until 6:30 p.m. on weekdays, taking children from six weeks through 12 years, and it accepts the state subsidy.
- Saturday care: Noah's Ark Learning Center. Open six days a week with drop-in care, and its printed meal schedule runs to an 8 p.m. snack. Call for actual hours.
- Summers and school breaks covered: Boise Kid Co.. Runs before and after school care for ages five to twelve, plus a summer camp and cover for school breaks and holidays.
- Tuition posted before the tour: Trinity Learning Center, Boise. Publishes monthly full-time rates by classroom, though it does not take the state subsidy.
- A small center with a nursery: A Child's Heart Learning Center & Nursery. A state-recorded capacity of 51 children, a nursery alongside the learning center, and subsidy accepted.
At a glance
| Option | Opens | Closes | Days Open | Ages Served | Child Care Subsidy | Address |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6:30 AMsource | 6:30 PMsource | Monday to Fridaysource | 6 weeks to 12 yearssource | Acceptedsource | 9045 W Irving St, Boise, ID 83704source | |
| 6:30 AMsource | 6:30 PMsource | Monday to Fridaysource | 6 weeks to 8 yearssource | Acceptedsource | 11978 W Ustick Rd, Boise, ID 83713source | |
| 6:30 AMsource | 6:00 PMsource | Monday to Fridaysource | 6 weeks to 12 yearssource | Not acceptedsource | 2297 E Summersweet Dr, Boise, ID 83716source | |
| 6:30 AMsource | 6:00 PMsource | Monday to Fridaysource | 13013 W Persimmon Ln, Boise, ID 83713source | |||
| 6:30 AMsource | 6:00 PMsource | Monday to Fridaysource | 6 weeks to 6 yearssource | Not acceptedsource | 7655 N Jennie Ln, Boise, ID 83714source | |
| 6:30 AMsource | 6:00 PMsource | Monday to Fridaysource | Infants through pre-kindergartensource | Acceptedsource | 5008 N Pierce Park Ln, Boise, ID 83714source | |
| Six days a weeksource | 1 month to 12 yearssource | Acceptedsource | 3457 N Maple Grove Rd, Boise, ID 83704source | |||
| 6:30 AMsource | 6:00 PMsource | Monday to Fridaysource | 1 month 2 weeks to 6 yearssource | Acceptedsource | 2410 N Cole Rd, Boise, ID 83704source |
6:00 or 6:30 pickup
Of the centers that post clock times, only Advantage and New Horizon Academy's West Ustick school run to 6:30 p.m. New Horizon has four Boise schools, and West Ustick is the only one of them open that late, so the brand name alone doesn't promise the hours. Trinity is similar: its Boise center closes at 6:00, but its Meridian site opens at 7:00 and closes at 5:30.
The River Academy pair, Boise Kid Co. and A Child's Heart all close at 6:00. If your commute ends at six, that half hour decides it.
Care that lasts past kindergarten
River Academy's Jennie Lane site takes children from six weeks to six years, its Pierce Park site from infants through pre-kindergarten, and A Child's Heart to six years. New Horizon West Ustick goes to eight. Advantage, Trinity and Noah's Ark all list 12 years as the top of their range, and Noah's Ark runs transport to nearby schools for school-age children.
Boise Kid Co. publishes no single age range, but its program list runs from infants to before and after school care for ages five to twelve, which makes it one of the few here that can carry a family through elementary school in one building.
Checking the ICCP subsidy
Advantage, New Horizon, River Academy Pierce Park, Noah's Ark and A Child's Heart are marked as taking the Idaho Child Care Program subsidy. Trinity and River Academy Jennie Lane are not, and Boise Kid Co. says nothing either way. The two River Academy sites are separately licensed, and their records differ.
Most of this column comes from state licensing records rather than the centers' own pages, and some of those records look old. New Horizon is the exception: it states on its own site that every location takes the subsidy and that its directors help with the paperwork. For anyone else, ask the director directly before you enroll.
The options in detail
Advantage Early Learning Centers, Boise
Advantage runs two Treasure Valley centers, and the Boise one on West Irving Street keeps the longest weekday window of any center here: 6:30 in the morning to 6:30 at night, so a parent with a late shift still has half an hour of slack at pickup. It takes children from six weeks through twelve years, which means one stop covers a baby and a grade-schooler, and it takes the state child care subsidy. Its published program list runs from infants through school-age care with school readiness activities, arts and crafts, music and outdoor play.
New Horizon Academy, Boise (West Ustick)
This is the West Boise site of New Horizon Academy, a Midwest chain with four Boise schools, and it is the only one of the four that stays open until 6:30 at night. It runs 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. on weekdays and takes children from six weeks to eight years, so it covers babies and early elementary but not older school-age kids. New Horizon accepts the Idaho Child Care Program subsidy at all its locations and says its directors will walk families through the paperwork. The building sits off West Ustick near North Cloverdale Road.
Trinity Learning Center, Boise
Trinity runs a Boise center and a Meridian one, and the two keep different hours: Boise opens at 6:30 and closes at 6:00, while Meridian does not open until 7:00 and shuts at 5:30. The Boise site posts its hours day by day and lists Saturday and Sunday as closed, so there is no weekend option here. Its program ladder starts with infant care at six weeks and runs through toddlers, preschool and pre-K, and the center publishes monthly full-time rates by classroom rather than hiding them behind a tour. It does not take the state child care subsidy, which is the trade-off against the other centers on this list.
Boise Kid Co.
Boise Kid Co. is a single play-based center in Mahogany Business Park on the west side, open 6:30 to 6:00 on weekdays. Its program ladder is unusually complete for one building: infants at zero to one, toddlers, preschool, pre-K, before and after school care for ages five to twelve, plus a summer camp and cover for school breaks and holidays. That makes it one of the few options here that can hold a family through elementary school without a second arrangement. It does not publish an age range for the centre as a whole or say whether it takes the state subsidy.
River Academy, Jennie Lane
River Academy's original site sits a block north of State Street near Highway 55, and runs child care from 6:30 in the morning to 6:00 at night on weekdays. It is a preschool and learning centre rather than a bare daycare: the programme ladder is infants at six weeks, toddlers, preschool and pre-kindergarten, and its state record puts the age range at six weeks to six years, so school-age children are not covered. The lobby is staffed full time with a computer entry system that only releases a child to an approved adult. This location does not take the state child care subsidy, though its Pierce Park sibling does.
River Academy, Pierce Park
River Academy's second Boise site is just north of State Street on Pierce Park Lane and keeps the same weekday window as Jennie Lane, 6:30 to 6:00. It runs the same programme ladder, infants through pre-kindergarten, so it is early-years care rather than a place for a grade-schooler. The one practical difference from its sibling is money: this location's state record shows it participating in the subsidised child care programme. Its own page gives hours and a phone number but no age range specific to the site.
Noah's Ark Learning Center
Noah's Ark is the only centre in this table that opens on Saturdays, and it advertises full-time, part-time and drop-in care six days a week. It is also the only one that does not publish clock times, so the hours columns are blank here: the claim on its own site is care twenty hours a day, and the meal schedule it prints runs from an 8 a.m. breakfast through a 5:30 p.m. dinner and an 8 p.m. snack, which is a strong hint that evening care is real. It is a Christian centre on Maple Grove Road taking children from one month to twelve years, it takes the state subsidy, it runs transport to nearby schools for school-age children, and three meals and three snacks are included rather than billed on top. Call before you plan around the hours.
A Child's Heart Learning Center & Nursery
A Child's Heart is a licensed centre on North Cole Road with a state-recorded capacity of 51 children, open 6:30 to 6:00 on weekdays and taking the state child care subsidy. It is the smallest option here and the only one that runs a nursery alongside the learning centre, taking children from about six weeks to six years, so it suits families with a baby and a preschooler rather than a grade-schooler. It has no website of its own, so everything above comes from its licensing record rather than from the centre, and its programme details are worth confirming by phone.
How we researched this
The bar for this list was a weekday opening by 6:45 a.m. and a closing of 6:00 p.m. or later, or care that runs into evenings and weekends. Plenty of real, operating Boise centers miss it. Boise KinderCare opens at 6:30 but closes at 5:30. Northview Montessori, Overland Montessori and Challenger School Boise open at 7:00, and Giraffe Laugh's four sites run 7:30 to 5:30. Marina Home Daycare is open Saturdays but not until 8:00 a.m. Several centers whose directory listings showed qualifying hours, including Super Kids and Kids Kampus, were dropped because their licence records read expired in 2017 and their websites now belong to unrelated businesses.
Hours come from each center's own website except for A Child's Heart, which has no site; its row is read from its licensing record, so confirm its program by phone. Noah's Ark's hours are empty because it never prints them, and Boise Kid Co.'s age range and subsidy status are empty because it gives no single range and says nothing on the subsidy. Tuition is left out on purpose: Trinity alone lists seven monthly rates for one building, by classroom, so one number per row would compare nothing.