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Daycare Center and Family Home Forum>Increasing Rates and School Transportation
Unregistered 07:07 AM 04-16-2014
I currently watch a 3 year old and 8 month old (siblings). I'm charging 200 per week for both children. The 3 year old is going to preschool this fall, and I'm considering not only raising my rates for watching the kids, but also charging for transport to/from school. I currently watch them 10-11 hours a day, four days a week.

My husband says for the amount of behavior problems and length of the day, I'm way underpaid.


My questions: 1) Do you charge for transportation to/from school? 2) How do you figure your charge. 3) How have you let your parents know about the rate increase? I have a contract that I would update. 4) How have your parents responded to rate increases?
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sahm1225 08:47 AM 04-16-2014
1) Do you charge for transportation to/from school?
Yes, it's walking distance and We walk to transport to school for afternoon preschool.

2) How do you figure your charge.
I just kept charging them the full day (no discount since their child wasn't in my care for 3 hours of the day).


3) How have you let your parents know about the rate increase? I have a contract that I would update.
I wrote a general letter that said something like 'it's that time of the year again where we review our contracts & emergency contact info. The new contract goes into effect in 60 days. Please review as their are some changes and updates."


4) How have your parents responded to rate increases?

I have only raised my rates once and lost one family over it. Honestly, they should've left a long time ago and the rate increase was their final push out the door. Since then, I have just added an extra paid closed holiday every year, lowered their unpaid days to just 3 per full time family, and charged an increased rate to the new families. Most of my families have added siblings, so the new baby starts out at the higher rate. None have ever complained and the one time I had to unexpectedly close (our daycare is in the basement and we had a horrible citywide flood), ALL the parents paid me for the day even though I offered to discount it.
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cheerfuldom 10:08 AM 04-16-2014
Originally Posted by Unregistered:
I currently watch a 3 year old and 8 month old (siblings). I'm charging 200 per week for both children. The 3 year old is going to preschool this fall, and I'm considering not only raising my rates for watching the kids, but also charging for transport to/from school. I currently watch them 10-11 hours a day, four days a week.

My husband says for the amount of behavior problems and length of the day, I'm way underpaid.


My questions: 1) Do you charge for transportation to/from school? 2) How do you figure your charge. 3) How have you let your parents know about the rate increase? I have a contract that I would update. 4) How have your parents responded to rate increases?
You absolutely should charge for transportation. There is a lot of liability in transporting other peoples kids. I personally refuse to transport to and from school for OTHER peoples kids. I will do some school runs for my own kids and bring the daycare kids along but I would never do this for another family because my group is larger and it is pain to do. I currently pay a friend to transport my own kids to avoid this! For the rate increase, send a letter outlining the changes and when they go into effect as well as a reminder of termination policy should the parents refuse to stay in care due to rate increase. Unless the rate increase is really small, most parents are going to fight you on an increase.....especially parents that are already getting a lot for a little as is this case. Are you prepared to lose this family? I personally would start interviewing for another family that is willing to pay new rates and then term this old family because it sounds like you are having multiple issues with them anyway. It may be too much to overcome and just time to move on
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nanglgrl 10:54 AM 04-16-2014
I'm not a 100% sure on this because I've never provided transportation but I thought I'd heard on here that if you transport on a regular basis (such as preschool) you have to call your insurance and your rates will be much higher. You might want to check in that.
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Tdhmom 11:09 AM 04-16-2014
From my experience...I wish I would have charged full days for the preschool kids that I have. I will from here on out.

I initially quoted dcm at almost HALF my normal rate per day. Not realizing her hours (I had only been open 1 year and only dealt with one other family, let's just say I've learned quite a bit from this family ) well after having her crazy twins for 2 weeks, I raised the rates (still less than a full day but I am not loosing money) or I would have termed...they were awful (and still are!) but it was also almost 8 hours in my care even with preschool for 3 hours.

I live 2 blocks from school but I walk them to and from school twice a day...even in the winter months! The only time we drove is if there was over a foot of snow or the wind chill was brutal. I feed them lunch (sometimes breakfast). So if I could start over with this family, back to August, I wouldn't have taken them or I would have charged A LOT more than a full day because they are bad!!! I'm talking behavior, attitude, mouthy, picky, whiney, all of it lumped into 2 children
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Jack Sprat 11:34 AM 04-16-2014
We transport kids to school now and don't charge a fee as our own DD goes to the same school at the same time. In the fall I will have one possibly two families that may require transportation. I am not sure if I will be able to do this as my van seats 5 in the back. If I am able to transport. I am charging .50 a mile. Its 8 miles round trip. It would be 2-4x a week. I haven't mentioned this to parents as they haven't asked yet. I am going to announce it at the end of the school year. The families that have children in pre-school will still be charged a full time rate. Pre-school is only for 3 hrs two days a week.
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