Before/After School Care & School Days off

[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.