Before/After School Care & School Days off

[zinz]

Hi all! New to the forum, & new to in-home daycare! I am in the process of starting up a RLNR child care, & in September I will be looking after two children before/after school. My question is: I have a set monthly fee for before/after school care, but what do I do for school professional-development days? If the kids are off school, and the parents want full-day care, how do I work that into the fee? Do I charge the difference between a full day fee and the BAS fee, which would just be due at the start of the month along with the regular fee (and would change month to month, based on the school schedule)? How would I work that into my contract?

And while I'm asking, what about things like Christmas break and spring break? They are both two weeks out of the month; it wouldn't make sense to charge them the regular monthly fee, would it? Would I charge a daily BAS rate for half the month & then a daily FT rate for the other half?

How is this normally handled??

[Peacefulbird]

Hi. There is two ways to handle it. Check and mark your year calendar.

One like before and after school programs do. You can take all the stat. Holidays plus end of the year holidays and adD the PD days (use the school calendar for this) once you have a total of these full days then pro-rate this amount and built it into your daily rate. So, parents pay kind of a just one daily fee that includes the other full day services. I have seen parents paying monthly almost the same amount as a full days daycare. Only $200 or $300 was the diference. After school before and after school programs built all their pricing based in ten monthly payments which covers all. And twelve months if the programs remain open during summer.

The second option, you charge your daily fee let's say $25 for before and after and when they have PD days you charge a fee for full day. And also try to charge stat holidays as a prorated fee or full fee (this is optional to you ). I've seen friends charge during Christmas and new year charge as the regular $25 fee. And they remain closed (those are family holidays) or if you're open same as the march break you will have to stablishow and charge a full day fee.

I hope it helps. Good luck.

[Busy ECE mommy]

I used to charge $25 flat rate for before/after care. I had a certain amount of paid holidays in my contract in addition to all of my stats being paid if child normally attended on that day. I charged a full day preschool rate if they needed care on PA days or school holidays. In my case that was $45. I did up schedules 6 months in advance based on school calendar and took post dated cheques for those periods. If I was open for days on the holidays then they paid their regular daily rate regardless if they attended or not. The premise is the same as for a full day child, that you are holding the child's spot open regardless of attendance.

[kindredspirit]

I mostly do full day. My afterschooler pays $75/week ($15/day) every week regardless of attendance, and even when I'm closed for stats. March break, Christmas, pd days or storm days they pay extra (to make a full day rate) if they attend. Mostly they pay the Friday before, storm days they pay at the end of the week. Summer is different though. I require full day rates M-F for the whole summer if they come at all. Otherwise they have the option to pay a deposit for September, and no fees for the summer (easy to find summer-only kids here).

[Suzie_Homemaker]

I don't take school age children because to me, a space is a space and with the limits in place, it makes no sense to allocate a space to a child who is going to pay a reduced fee for fewer hours.

If I did decide to take on this, I would :-

1) decide if I'm even going to offer full day care. The school based programs here only open if the school is open and there's no care for school holidays/closure days. Clearly those parents manage to find alternative cover and so there are options out there for this. I think for me, the advantage of taking school age children would be the reduction in hours that would allow me to do other things during the day time and so I might not even offer the option of all day care.
2) if I was going to offer care when school closed, I wouldn't charge monthly. I would have a daily rate for term time and a different rate for full day care. Then every two weeks, I'd be paid in advance where I'd be able to see from the school calendar what fees would be due for the next two weeks. I wouldn't try and figure out an average so that the fees were always the same.

[kindredspirit]

I don't take school age children because to me, a space is a space and with the limits in place, it makes no sense to allocate a space to a child who is going to pay a reduced fee for fewer hours.

If I did decide to take on this, I would :-

1) decide if I'm even going to offer full day care. The school based programs here only open if the school is open and there's no care for school holidays/closure days. Clearly those parents manage to find alternative cover and so there are options out there for this. I think for me, the advantage of taking school age children would be the reduction in hours that would allow me to do other things during the day time and so I might not even offer the option of all day care.
2) if I was going to offer care when school closed, I wouldn't charge monthly. I would have a daily rate for term time and a different rate for full day care. Then every two weeks, I'd be paid in advance where I'd be able to see from the school calendar what fees would be due for the next two weeks. I wouldn't try and figure out an average so that the fees were always the same.

The hours of elementary school in my town are 8-1:50. So I don't have any before school care. This lets me take morning preschoolers to fill the empty half space of my 2 school aged kids. I get the same pay from 2 half-day children as one full day child. And it's written into the preschoolers contract that they follow school closures (as they only come 4h, I know they have a parent at home), which leaves the full day open the the school aged children (whose parents work full days).

[Suzie_Homemaker]

I get the same pay from 2 half-day children as one full day child. And it's written into the preschoolers contract that they follow school closures (as they only come 4h, I know they have a parent at home), which leaves the full day open the the school aged children (whose parents work full days).

I in PEI. Here it would be rare that parent need care only after school but can see that this would be easier in term of having other client come morning to recover lost fees.

School in my catchment area start 8.25am but lot of parent need to at work by 9am or earlier. It more common that school age child need care before school and after or just before school care if parent start work 7am-7.30am than it is for just after school care be need. There not any ability to be able have two child for half day who school age and two different child for other half day. I guess it depend on school schedule for most of us.

It more normal here that a provider take either just students or just the littles. It very rare that someone take mixed groups because of the school hours. Taking just student only is normally the choice for provider who have other commitment during day or who not want full time hours. Lots of provider who take the school age, have other employment during school hour.

Because most school age provider have other commitment during day, it typical that full day care not an option. This same as the school based BAS programs. School age provider's typically not open on snow day, or Christmas and Summer Break or any other school closure but there lot of day camp available to working parent during these time which usually cheaper option anyway.

It interesting see how much rule changes between province.

[daycaremom9]

I used to charge $25 flat rate for before/after care. I had a certain amount of paid holidays in my contract in addition to all of my stats being paid if child normally attended on that day. I charged a full day preschool rate if they needed care on PA days or school holidays. In my case that was $45. I did up schedules 6 months in advance based on school calendar and took post dated cheques for those periods. If I was open for days on the holidays then they paid their regular daily rate regardless if they attended or not. The premise is the same as for a full day child, that you are holding the child's spot open regardless of attendance.

Busy ECE Mom, just wondering if you charged for stats if the child was part time or just for full time?

[Busy ECE mommy]

@daycaremom9-I charged the stat to whoever typically attended on that day of the week(regardless if they were FT or PT) ie. if your regular day is Monday, you will pay for the Monday stat.