Introduction and a question (x'mas school break)

[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?