Introduction and a question (x'mas school break)

[BearBear]

Good day everyone,
I just recently opened a home daycare and this forum has played a very important role in learning. I thank you all for sharing your experiences as it became a learning tool for me. Your advises to someone new like me were and still are greatly appreciated. In this regard, I would like to ask for your advise what would you usually do in this situation.
a. I have a "Before and after school care"
In my contract, I have this:
"Payment in full is required for each week regardless of your child's attendance."

However, in the Parent's Handbook, I have this: ( a bit more specific of type of absence)
"For all types of care, fees remain the same regardless of absence due to statutory holidays, severe weather condition or illness."
Question: If you are the parent, would you be assuming that you will not pay during the school christmas break? As a caregiver, would you be asking for payment.

b. I also have a "full-time" infant. Family members will be in town and noted that they will be caring for her during the last week of December.
Question: Same clause in the contract and Parent's Handbook, am I right to still expect for full payment?

c. For school age care, Do you find that these two clauses are still vague and need revision to cover PD days, christmas holiday and March breaks?

Again, your input will be greatly appreciated.

[mickyc]

If that is how your contract reads then I would expect that you would get paid for the full Christmas break. I would be more specific though and include Christmas break, spring break, pd days etc. do you still charge them for summer holidays if they are away?

Yes for your full-time infant you would also still get paid as they are paying for the spot not when they are on holidays.

Do you have a part in your contract that says when you don't get paid - your sick days, your holidays for example.

I have a part in my contract that talks about my holidays and how I do not charge for those days when I am closed. I do mention that families are required to pay for their spot when they are on holidays. I also have the same thing for sick days.

And WELCOME!!

[BearBear]

@mickyc
In my contract, I totally missed the things applicable for school age as you itemized.
I only started this September 2014. I will now definitely re-write my contracts for school age.

[Rachael]

I would like to ask for your advise what would you usually do in this situation.
a. I have a "Before and after school care"
In my contract, I have this:
"Payment in full is required for each week regardless of your child's attendance."

However, in the Parent's Handbook, I have this: ( a bit more specific of type of absence)
"For all types of care, fees remain the same regardless of absence due to statutory holidays, severe weather condition or illness."
Question: If you are the parent, would you be assuming that you will not pay during the school christmas break? As a caregiver, would you be asking for payment.

b. I also have a "full-time" infant. Family members will be in town and noted that they will be caring for her during the last week of December.
Question: Same clause in the contract and Parent's Handbook, am I right to still expect for full payment?

c. For school age care, Do you find that these two clauses are still vague and need revision to cover PD days, christmas holiday and March breaks?

Again, your input will be greatly appreciated.

For Before and After school, I would not expect to be paying you for the Christmas Break, Summer Break or March Break. I can understand the requirement to be paid on stat holidays and as a self employed person, if my child was with you, I would respect that part of your contract but I would not expect to pay for BAS care on days where there was no school. You own contract specifies stat days (so fair enough, that's agreed to by accepting the contract) but they other situations are poor weather and illness. There's no mention of expecting to be paid for breaks.

Would you really expect me to pay for 10 weeks in Summer? If Summer is being treated differently to March Break and Christmas Break, how I am meant to know that? Based on the contract details provided, there is nothing to tell me that you expect payment on any of these.
If my arrangement with you is say 7am-8.30am before school and 4pm until 6pm after school, since I am paying for the place, I presume I can bring my child on these days if you are charging me for them? If not, why am I paying for your unavailability? 10 weeks of Summer, 2 weeks of Christmas, one week March Break, likely 5-7 teacher training days a year, maybe 5 snow days, - Am I paying for 15 weeks approx when school is closed, my kids aren't off sick, and can come to you?


I can understand if our agreement was that during school closure dates you would be taking my child all day and so an all day rate was due over Summer time and so the same rules would apply to your FT'er and older school age children. But if we have no arrangement for care when school is closed, your contract does not mention payment is due - or not clearly enough. What about snow days, teacher training days? Are your parents expected to pay for all of these even though they are scheduled a year in advance so you know I don't need care?

I would read that and take it to mean if you were expecting my child because it was a school day and school was open, then, if I opted to keep my child home because they were ill or because I considered the roads too bad, then I would have to pay because it's a short notice type event. There is nothing which indicates you want payment on school breaks so I wouldn't expect that.

So for (A) - As a parent, no I would not be expecting to pay and as a carer, I would not be expecting clients to pay unless I had specified that very clearly or unless I was routinely providing all day care when the school was closed for this client.

(B) - Yes, as a parent, I would expect to pay you for that week family members are in town because your contract says "regardless of child's attendance" and because if family wasn't here, then the child would be with you.

(C) Yes - very vague, esp for BAS. Christmas Break is normally 2 weeks and March break a 3rd week. Do you really expect BAS clients to pay for 3 weeks leave? Do your FT families pay for 3 weeks leave too? Are they the same three weeks?

[mickyc]

IMO if you do before/after school care and want to include stats/school breaks I would have a set monthly fee for before/after school. I would make sure that your contract reads that they are paying for the spot and therefore regular fees are payable regardless of school breaks. That being said I would certainly not expect a family to pay for summer break.

[Busy ECE mommy]

The full time child should pay for all days they are scheduled, regardless if family is in town or not.
Before/after needs to be more clear. Are you open to them for full days on Xmas/march break/PA days etc. If so, then you should apply the full day rate for preschoolers if they attend all day during the breaks. I used to do before/after, and they paid for their regularly scheduled days during all breaks($25 before/after rate) if they did not attend, and if they came in, they paid a full day preschool rate($45 a day) You are holding their spot open, so they should still pay something.

[AmandaKDT]

The full time child should pay for all days they are scheduled, regardless if family is in town or not.
Before/after needs to be more clear. Are you open to them for full days on Xmas/march break/PA days etc. If so, then you should apply the full day rate for preschoolers if they attend all day during the breaks. I used to do before/after, and they paid for their regularly scheduled days during all breaks($25 before/after rate) if they did not attend, and if they came in, they paid a full day preschool rate($45 a day) You are holding their spot open, so they should still pay something.

I do the same thing, including summer holidays. They are paying for the spot whether they come or not. It is no different than taking on a family that has a school teacher parent, just because they don't need to send their child doesn't mean they shouldn't have to pay. Most people need school holiday care anyway.

[BearBear]

I want to thank you all for your input. I have added this in my Parent's Handbook and contract. Would you please let me know if it's okay, if clear enough. I just kind of got this from previous threads and reword a bit. I hope that she does not mind that I used it. Thanks again.
==================== =====
FEE FOR SCHOOL AGE
During the school year, a place has been reserved in the day care for your child before and after school. A full day care for school closure dates is not automatic and therefore must be agreed in advance subject to availability and if such an arrangement has been reached, school closure dates will require the full day rate of $35.00 and payment will be collected same day.
Before and after school fees are required regardless of attendance and therefore payment is required for snow dates, missed days due to illness, appointments, professional dates (PD), family vacation days, statutory holidays, Christmas break, spring break and any other circumstance where the school closes at a short notice. Please be advised that care will NOT be available for school age children when school is closed unless a full day care has been agreed by both parties.
FEE FOR ALL OTHER TYPES OF CARE
For all other types of care, fees remain the same regardless of absence due to illness, statutory holidays, child’s family scheduled vacation, appointments, and snow dates (severe weather condition).
NO-FEE will be charge if the daycare is closed due to caregiver’s (illness) sick days, doctor’s appointment and scheduled vacation days unless an alternate caregiver is provided.

[mickyc]

sent you a PM.

[BearBear]

Colleagues, I have taken all your inputs and did a revision in my first sentence to specify that "During School Year (September to June)". So it's clear that no payment is expected on summer breaks. As for the X'mas and March (spring) break, it falls with the school year and I am still open on those days. As some of you noted and has a policy that parents are paying for the spot not the attendance, I followed some of you, so payment will still be expected.

I live in Ottawa, so if colleagues has different policy, would you mind sharing it at least it's better to compare if it's the same area. Thanks a bunch.

@mickyc, thank you for the PM.

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