Daycare Holiday Question

[new_mom_mry]

If your child attends an in-home daycare part-time, e.g., T, W, Th, does your daycare still charge you for federal holidays that fall on a Monday (or in other words, on a day that your child DOES NOT attend the daycare)??

And a related question--is there a reason why a daycare owner would not allow a family to switch from a full-time schedule (M, T, W, Th) to T, W, Th only, assuming they didn't have a waiting list or some other child who could readily come in and attend full-time? They are closed on Fridays, so M-Th is full-time for this program. This is sneaky suspicion only, but since all federal holidays this year fall on a Monday, would that be the reason why a daycare provider would not be ok with a family not attending on Mondays, since they want to be able to charge them for those paid Monday holidays?

[egoldber]

We pay monthly, and we pay the same price every month, regardless of holidays (except in August when they are closed for a full week). So to me "paying" for holidays is normal. I think it seems worse if you pay weekly.

It is always harder for a daycare to fill a part time slot, so again it seems normal to me for a daycare to either not all part time or to pay a rate that is higher than what might be expected "normally".

And all federal holidays are not on Monday this year. July 4 is a Wednesday and December 25 is a Tuesday. And of course Thanksgiving Day is Thursday.

[new_mom_mry]

We pay monthly, and we pay the same price every month, regardless of holidays (except in August when they are closed for a full week). So to me "paying" for holidays is normal. I think it seems worse if you pay weekly.

It is always harder for a daycare to fill a part time slot, so again it seems normal to me for a daycare to either not all part time or to pay a rate that is higher than what might be expected "normally".

And all federal holidays are not on Monday this year. July 4 is a Wednesday and December 25 is a Tuesday. And of course Thanksgiving Day is Thursday.

So we also pay monthly, but it's calculated based on the number of days in the month. I suppose another way to phrase is that we pay daily, but the payment is due on the first of each month for the number of days we are contracted to attend in the month plus paid federal holidays that fall under that month. Paying for holidays on the day that our child attends has also been normal for us, but I am trying to figure out how it works with families who attend part-time (and pay based on number of days they attend), and whether they are still held responsible for paying for federal holidays that fall on a day when their child does not attend.

[infocrazy]

I think yes.

At my company, if a holiday falls on a Sunday, I get either the Monday off (paid) as the corporate recognized holiday or "holiday cash", basically paid for the holiday I don't get to take.

In this case, they do not get to take the subsitute day off, so they are getting the holiday cash. Wearing my parent hat, it totally bites to pay for what you aren't using, but wearing my corporate hat, I can follow the logic.

In terms of PT vs FT, do you know that they even allow PT families? We have a nanny because we have odd requirements and had lots of difficulty finding a daycare that would fit our PT needs. Most were very strict on only taking on FT families. Although how is the daycare not open Fridays??? That seems crazy to me!

I get that there is no waiting list in your case, but what if they get a call for a placement? You could end up losing your spot to a FT child with very little notice and be scrambling for a PT placement somewhere else.

[wellyes]

If they're open 4 days a week, I can see not allowing a 3-day-a-week schedule. They're not going to be able to fill that Monday slot with someone else, so it would just be lost income for them. They'd be better off if you left and someone else came in M-T-W-Th.

When DD went p/t to a daycare, they charged us more per day than someone who went f/t, again to compensate for lost income on their part. I thought it was not unreasonable.

[new_mom_mry]

If they're open 4 days a week, I can see not allowing a 3-day-a-week schedule. They're not going to be able to fill that Monday slot with someone else, so it would just be lost income for them. They'd be better off if you left and someone else came in M-T-W-Th.

When DD went p/t to a daycare, they charged us more per day than someone who went f/t, again to compensate for lost income on their part. I thought it was not unreasonable.

If they find a child who can attend full-time instead of DS, are they obligated to give us notice, and if so, how long?? Right now we have to give them 30 days of notice if we leave the daycare. We are planning to leave all together in June or July. I am really unhappy with this daycare, but that's a whole other issue. That's why we are trying to reduce DS's number of days, and switch to a nanny-daycare mix, and then leave all together as soon as a slot opens up in one of our two alternative daycares of choice.

[new_mom_mry]

I think yes.

At my company, if a holiday falls on a Sunday, I get either the Monday off (paid) as the corporate recognized holiday or "holiday cash", basically paid for the holiday I don't get to take.

In this case, they do not get to take the subsitute day off, so they are getting the holiday cash. Wearing my parent hat, it totally bites to pay for what you aren't using, but wearing my corporate hat, I can follow the logic.

In terms of PT vs FT, do you know that they even allow PT families? We have a nanny because we have odd requirements and had lots of difficulty finding a daycare that would fit our PT needs. Most were very strict on only taking on FT families. Although how is the daycare not open Fridays??? That seems crazy to me!

I get that there is no waiting list in your case, but what if they get a call for a placement? You could end up losing your spot to a FT child with very little notice and be scrambling for a PT placement somewhere else.

All good points. To be honest, I would be happy if we lost our spot and not be subjected to the obligatory 30 day notice (not sure how many days of notice daycare owner owes us or how it all works if she wants to replace us). We both work full-time. We are planning to leave this daycare all together as soon as a spot opens up at a much better program in the summer. If for whatever reason she decided to replace us, we would just have to find a full-time nanny until the summer...we are only switching to the part time schedule to allow DS to have two days a week with a nanny at home, and then some daycare time.