Planning on opening a French only BA care service

Hi , Bonjour

I am thinking in starting up a Before and After care service for the French community in my area. My background has been high corporate for over 20 year and dealing with customers I feel they can be worst then crying babies :laugh:.

My real background is being a mother of 4 children. 3 boys (7,9 and 13) and 1 girl (8).

I have read through numerous information on this forum which has answered a lot of questions however I have a few others:

What courses should I potentially take besides CPR
Is it up to the parents to ensure they have the school bus changed to my home address? will this cause any issues ?
Should I ask for confirmation on the bus stop change to ensure they are registered to be on the bus to the school?
Hours I am thinking is from 7:00 am - 5:30pm. is this a reasonable time?
Does anyone assist with homework? if so should I look at adding this service to increase the cost as I am offering also a "tutoring" time.

My plan is to offer simple healthy breakfast in the morning. And a healthy snack after school.

My children have a set schedule which has been working . Should I implement the same schedule?

I notice some charge more for children of "maternelle and Jardin" why would this be? In one forum a comment was made that children that are 6 and older can actually cost more with their growth spurts so they tend to eat more , which food cost money?

I'm sure more questions will come up but this is all I have for now

Je vous remercie

You don't say where you live but in Ontario for instance you can have 5 daycare children only so even doing just before and after school care you can only have 5. Therefore you don't really make any money because they tend to eat a lot more so what you actually make for their care goes towards food and craft supplies if you provide them for after school. For sure you will not make anything in terms of income that will come close to equalling what you earn now.

You are not allowed to overlap children either so even if some go to school in the morning you could only take on younger children between school hours and then not take the school age group for full days on PD, school breaks etc which many parents won't like.

Many who do just before and after school have some sort of personal job that they do while the children are in school and often one they do from home just in case school is closed and kids are home all day.

For sure you can charge a premium for French only care in many cities because it is harder to find. As for the buses you will need to find out what buses come to your area now and where the bus stops are. Then you will need to advertise only for children that go to those schools. This info will be available through the school board sites showing what your neighbourhood schools are.

Thank you Playfelt. yes I am in Ontario, Our French school which my 3 youngest attend are full days starting Junior Kindergarden. The bus stop for the school is around corner of my home , so I would assume it would have to be the parents to make the bus stop schedule change with the school or transportation?
I just did not understand why junior and senior kindergarden would be charged more then the children 6 years and older? I was curious if anyone charges differently .
Thanks again for your information its helpful.

I think you will gradually see that change. A lot of the fee schedules you see was when JK/SK was half day. Also they will not change the bus for you. You will need to walk the kids to the bus stop and meet them at the bus stop after school. I think up until the end of grade 1 they have to have an adult at the bus stop or they won't be let off. Which also means you may want to only take children that attend the same school as your own children or you could have conflicts in where you need to be for bus time. It won't be as bad for you if you are not also dragging younger children to the bus stop with you. Around me the going rates are $15 for either before or after and $25 a day for both. So it is about half the income you would make if you had younger children all day but cost wise the school kids will eat about twice what a toddler eats. Also the household deductions you can claim will be a lot less because it will be based on the hours the children are there which is closer to 4 hours whereas a full time toddler is in the house for up to 10 hours.

It is for sure something that you can do as long as you are not planning to use the income towards household expenses because you won't make enough to have much more than pocket money.