Preschool Tuition Question

[nicolewi]

I'm on the board of our small, parent board-led co-op preschool (there is also a paid part-time director and paid teachers/aides). What are other schools/daycares, etc, doing about tuition payments during a shut-down? 

We currently plan to go back on April 27 (we'll see). School was off the week of March 14 for the first time. Preschool is just 2 mornings/week for 3K and 4 mornings for 4K. We had a planned spring break week, an additional day off, and a couple days for conferences planned during the shut-down. 

What would you think we should do re: tuition? The school still has to pay rent and salaries during this time. Many people pre-paid for the entire year in August, but some pay monthly. 

Teachers will be doing e-learning--a video call each school day morning, and providing activities for kids to do at home.

[pugz]

I'm on the board of our preschool and we are out for the remainder of the school year. They are refunding a pro-rated amount for March and if anyone paid in full for the semester they are refunding a prorated amount for that too. Some people are letting them keep the March tuition in full.

As for paying the bills, we had a contingency fund for something like a fire (never imagined a pandemic) and are paying the teachers 50% from that and 50% from our regular operating budget. We only had 7 weeks left in the year so it was not as big of a financial hit as it could have been.

[pooh8402]

So far, we are officially still going back April 6, and they are providing instruction online (E1 goes to a private preK-12 school). I think it will be late April before they actually go back, if they do at all.

They're refunding for extracurriculars (like after care and STEM club, etc) but not tuition. However, they said that if tuition is a hardship (due to parents out of work), to call the office and they'd work with us.

I'm actually wondering how they're going to pay for everything. Tuition only covers the teachers' salaries. They fundraise for the operational costs, and fundraisers have all been cancelled.

[dcn]

There’s no word on whether we will go back or not, but I prepaid for the year and would fine if the school kept it. We only have April and may left.

[madringal]

If feasible, I would send an email letting everyone know the situation (still have to pay rent and salaries) but also cognizant that the families of your students still have obligations as well and with possibly no income coming in. If families would like to apply to receive a prorated refund, they can email you back with the request. Once you have a good idea of how many families that would be - you can come up with a plan. Some are going to want their money back, some wont, some will want to send extra to make sure the staff is taken care of. Hopefully you have a good balance. But I think having an idea of how much you are looking to give back will help you guys come up with a plan going forward.

[nicolewi]

Mar 26, 2020 11:00:55 GMT -5 madringal said:

If feasible, I would send an email letting everyone know the situation (still have to pay rent and salaries) but also cognizant that the families of your students still have obligations as well and with possibly no income coming in. If families would like to apply to receive a prorated refund, they can email you back with the request. Once you have a good idea of how many families that would be - you can come up with a plan. Some are going to want their money back, some wont, some will want to send extra to make sure the staff is taken care of. Hopefully you have a good balance. But I think having an idea of how much you are looking to give back will help you guys come up with a plan going forward.

Thanks. This is along the lines of what I was thinking. I don't think it has to be all (refund everyone!) or nothing (we're keeping the $$). 

[gastro]

We just got a credit for about half our tuition for a month. So far they are targeting an April 20 resume date which I’m sure will change. Last day is June 5. Not sure what they plan to do for the remaining time.

[lessel]

Our daycare is kind of half-closed. They're closed to their public pre-k class and closed for before/after care for pre-k/local elementary. But their infant through preschool rooms are still open. We have one in public pre-k and one in the toddler room and we're keeping both home. For the older kid we don't have to pay anything--we do use after care but it's basically pay per use. For our little guy they gave us two options: dis-enroll and re-enroll when he comes back OR pay half to keep him enrolled. We're doing the latter.

If they told us to pay the full amount we would have, so I think the approach to have families request a different payment depending on their situation would be good.

[sometimesrunner]

Our school is open, but only 10 of the usual 35 kids are attending. For those not in attendance, we will pay 50% starting in April.

[redpenmama]

Our last day of school was scheduled for May 14, so we only have 6 weeks left. I'm sure we are done, though we are currently closed until April 20. We were told last week not to pay April tuition.

[janegold]

I think our school (a non-profit) has been incredibly generous. They've committed to paying teachers through at least April 7, so they have asked any families that feel they can afford to do so to continue paying tuition. In exchange, they will issue a charitable donation letter for tax purposes. However, if a family would prefer to reduce or stop tuition, they are free to do so. In addition, if any families have had to incur other childcare costs as a result of the shut-down, they will reimburse the families for those costs up to the cost of the tuition paid by the families.

We planned to keep paying through April 7, but as of yesterday, our state has shut down schools and daycares through May 4. I'm not sure if the school is still going to try to pay teacher salaries through then or not, but we may need to reevaluate whether we can continue to pay that long (we pay for FT surround care and extracurriculars so it's not an insignificant amount). 

[starryfish]

We are at a daycare that is still open. I pulled my daughter and am paying 1/2 tuition. I could unenroll her but I’m hoping it’s just a few more weeks. My husband just got furloughed for 30 days, so if it does last longer I will have to unenroll

[simpsongal]

Ours just decided on half tuition. For reference, we pay about $1500/month for 4 days per week. I have no idea when they’ll reopen to non essential people.

ETA - We paid full tuition for March even though it was closed half the month.  No distance or elearning….

[patches31709]

Tuition was paid as normal for March, but beginning in April they will charge tuition weekly. Looks like they're targeting getting back to normal in May - we'll see.

[icedcoffee]

I'm not sure this is really comparable to daycare give that it's so part time and so much less expensive than your regular daycare.  While I expect some sort of discount for time not attended at my $1,500/month daycare this is closer to $400 per month.  I think if you can refund even $100-200 that would be more than generous especially given they are still doing e-learning.

[boiler717]

My son attends a full-day preschool for ages 2-K. They ended classes March 13 and are closed until May 1 at the earliest. We paid full tuition for March but will not pay for April. All teachers and staff will be paid fully. March 23 we were provided with 4 weeks of individualized work for at home. I think that’s incredibly fair.
My son’s former Montessori school through grade 3 is closed for the same amount of time and same tuition deal. They provide a 30 group Zoom daily. They laid off all the staff but 1 (and the owner), including the elementary teacher. Owner will not admit to laying off staff, though. They did not give the opportunity to pay reduced tuition and keep staff which bothered a lot of parents.

[mccallister84]

When we were just supposed to be out two weeks they wrote that they were pro rating April’s tuition to make up for the time we were out in March. Since we are now closed through 4/27 (at least) they have told us that they will not be charging tuition until May. I did write to ask if the teachers would be paid and if not could we donate to a fund to them but I didn’t get a reply.

[thebreakfastclub]

My daycare closed as of Monday, we don't have to pay anything.

I assume the staff is on furlough now, so they maintain benefits but can file for unemployment or seek a temporary job in the interim.

I am looking at a possible furlough myself so I have no appetite to pay for something I'm not using now.

[sandandsea]

Ours is not charging any tuition at this point and has provided nothing, which I think is appropriate for a daycare. They’ve been closed for almost 2 weeks and we are under a SIP order. For daycares, no online academic program replaces childcare. I need someone to watch my child so I can work. I would expect the school to have reserve funds or some kind of business insurance to cover this type of situation and be able to retain talented teachers for when daycares can reopen. I’m not okay paying over $1500 per month when I’m receiving no services.

Of course this is best case and best practices which I know isn’t reality for a lot of a schools, but I dont think it’s fair to expect parents to pay full or even half rates when services aren’t provided, especially when it’s a huge piece of most household budgets.

[felicity]

Our preschool is a similar setup to yours, and our state's schools are closed for the school year, so they follow the same schedule. They didn't refund the days in March that were missed, but will upon request if a family needs it. They are not charging for April as school is closed now. May was prepaid as a deposit, and they asked if families would be willing to donate it to the school to keep it going, for the same reasons you stated, but they will refund the deposits otherwise.

I'm a little surprised your school is doing virtual learning for preschoolers. As a parent, I'd be annoyed if they tried to switch to virtual and expect to be paid for this. IMO, most of preschool learning is social skills, play, learning how to behave in a classroom environment, and most importantly I'm paying to get a break from my kid lol. But, maybe I'm in the minority and many parents would like this?

[pinkpeony08]

Ours remains closed but sent an email to everyone explaining that without additional money, they won’t be able to pay the caregivers and worries they won’t be there when this ends. They asked if people were willing to pay, they would pay the caregivers but understanding that not every family is able to do this. We paid our usual monthly amount and are crossing our fingers it can survive.

[hbomdiggity]

Our daycare/preschool is refunding the full amount for the planned closure through end of April.

[CloudBee]

When DS was in Catholic school, I'm fairly certain there was a clause that said tuition was non-refundable in the event of a natural disaster. I wouldn't expect a refund.

I would, however, expect the preschool to offer "something". Many are doing Zoom story times, uploading videos of teachers reading on YouTube, etc. I do think that's important to help soften the blow on the loss of tuition $$.

[nicolewi]

Mar 27, 2020 7:47:16 GMT -5 felicity said:

Our preschool is a similar setup to yours, and our state's schools are closed for the school year, so they follow the same schedule. They didn't refund the days in March that were missed, but will upon request if a family needs it. They are not charging for April as school is closed now. May was prepaid as a deposit, and they asked if families would be willing to donate it to the school to keep it going, for the same reasons you stated, but they will refund the deposits otherwise.

I'm a little surprised your school is doing virtual learning for preschoolers. As a parent, I'd be annoyed if they tried to switch to virtual and expect to be paid for this. IMO, most of preschool learning is social skills, play, learning how to behave in a classroom environment, and most importantly I'm paying to get a break from my kid lol. But, maybe I'm in the minority and many parents would like this?

The virtual learning is meant to be a nice service, so kids don't miss out on preschool. It's optional and not meant to try to equal school. There's usually a new theme every week. They do fun little craft projects and things that the teacher will likely share in case parents want to do them at home. 

I think it's really nice, b/c my four year will definitely want something when all the big kids have to do "school" on Monday. It's also nice for her to "see" her teacher.