One daycare has asked all children whose parents are working from home or have family that can watch the kids to be pulled. They only want kids of essential workers. They have also asked to keep all of the March tuition and pay about 25% of April's tuition to hold your spot. The amount paid in April will be applied to your tuition when you return so it's not really an "extra" payment. Apparently both of these policies have people livid from what I gather based on FB comments and the stress I see in the owners themselves. I will have to pull DD since I am pseudo-essential but my husband can supervise her if I have to become essential for a few hours. I asked them to give me a few days to get my crap in order.
Update - the other daycare where DS goes sent an email they are closing as of Friday and to pay for half of April to hold your spot. Far less generous than what DD's daycare is doing but I think they are also more sought after school so they likely don't care if families complain or leave.
The other daycare where DS goes has not said a peep about money. Their attendance is also way down. I will continue to send DS until they say I can't because he is otherwise too much for me to handle all day and night with no help from the daycare or my parents (we've had to stop seeing them since my kids and I are basically vermin at this point).
My daycare is open only to essential parents and asked us to pay part time rate which was billed today and is over 70% of the cost which just increased a month ago. My h was laid off last week. I don’t know how if I will be able to pay this considering that we have an older child in school and it doesn’t look like schools will reopen any time soon and my h might be home indefinitely and in all reality my job may do the same. This stinks so much, but I can’t pay over a k each month to keep a business afloat when we’re already down one income.
If you’ve faced a lay-off, pull your kids and stop paying - no guilt at all.
The people continuing to pay/urging others to keep paying are doing so under the assumption that you are still bringing in your normal income.
Our director finally emailed everyone and said they wont be withdrawing April's payment and that once it does re-open we can go from there in terms of figuring out payment but we are withdrawing DS in May (had always planned on this) with April being his last month and we paid first & last so not sure what that means for our deposit. I guess I will email her to find out. She said that she paid her staff for all of March but for April they will be on employment. Our premier just announced that Ontario is basically being shut down and only essential businesses can stay open so H's small business is closing down temporarily as well (they were able to work fully practicing social distancing) so we would prefer a refund for whatever days we dont use in April since we are being hit financially by this as well.
My in-home daycare provider who lives alone just contacted me and said she has not been out of the house (instacart only for shopping) and would love to be seen as an extension of our home and the kids can go there during the days!!! Omg!!! My sanity is SAVED! We are going to take her up on it for now with the caveat that any one of us is welcome to cancel at any time if we don’t keep up the isolation (and we will still pay). I am so relieved. My job involves almost full days of meetings, and my kids were practically neglected.
My in-home daycare provider who lives alone just contacted me and said she has not been out of the house (instacart only for shopping) and would love to be seen as an extension of our home and the kids can go there during the days!!! Omg!!! My sanity is SAVED! We are going to take her up on it for now with the caveat that any one of us is welcome to cancel at any time if we don’t keep up the isolation (and we will still pay). I am so relieved. My job involves almost full days of meetings, and my kids were practically neglected.
My in-home daycare provider who lives alone just contacted me and said she has not been out of the house (instacart only for shopping) and would love to be seen as an extension of our home and the kids can go there during the days!!! Omg!!! My sanity is SAVED! We are going to take her up on it for now with the caveat that any one of us is welcome to cancel at any time if we don’t keep up the isolation (and we will still pay). I am so relieved. My job involves almost full days of meetings, and my kids were practically neglected.
krystee, we had the same gig going up to today. It was only my kiddos going, and she has her teenage kids on house lockdown due to their asthma she is enforcing that they quarantine too. It was so convenient last week! Now she's closed until the 8th, but I am going to have a full day of work on the 6th to learn about e-teaching, and then expected to start e-teaching on the 7th.
Today she said since she's technically licensed, she can't honor the gig anymore per DCFS. Which, I get, but am slightly bummed. Not sure how anything is going to get done at all with a 3, 1 and 1 year old. Who are fighting naps, recently stopped napping, and waking up all hours of the night. I was not cut out to be a SAHM. I miss work and my work kiddos.
lemoncupcake just mine! I wouldn’t bring them if there were others. The only reason we can bring them is that they are only seeing her and she hasn’t seen anyone else.
lemoncupcake just mine! I wouldn’t bring them if there were others. The only reason we can bring them is that they are only seeing her and she hasn’t seen anyone else.
That sounds perfect, honestly! I hope that it continues to work for you
krystee that’s the proposal I put out to our daycare in home daycare provider to start Monday, when we all will have been self isolating for over two weeks. I offered to pay her well to watch just my kids - I really hope she takes me up on it! I know she’d prefer to just reopen as normal (she usually watches 5 kids at a time), but I don’t think she’s going to be ready to do that.
Even if you aren’t losing income, you may be preparing to lose income or paying for alternate care. I feel like there’s a high likelihood of aid packages for workers who are laid off and business relief, but there’s a pretty low likelihood of aid for families who kept giving money to a business who may or may not pay their teachers. There are going to be some, if not many, families who can’t keep paying. We do need a systematic way to address the problem and make sure businesses aren’t lost and teachers are paid, but it can’t be on individual families to make that happen.
To the bolded point, the federal stimulus package increases unemployment benefits very substantially for four months, which could buffer temporary layoffs of teachers and staff. There is also direct relief for businesses.
I wrote to daycare to encourage them to explore all the options, including the federal stimulus package, and to reduce tuition to the absolute minimum necessary. It doesn't feel at all fair to expect families to pay when there is federal and state relief available.
Our daycare announced they are doing full refunds for Infant and Toddler rooms. They will do 50% tuition for all other rooms. Also you can withdraw at any time and stop getting billed immediately.
NJ just announced all daycares must close by 4/1 unless they only serve families of essential workers. I'm assuming ours will try to reopen if it's worth it for them, and then how can they really charge us if it's so limited? Up until now they've been closed at their own discretion, not mandated.
Although, CPA firms were deemed "essential" here, I'm not sure I'll feel comfortable yet, especially sending them with kids that might have higher exposure risk if their parents are working in healthcare or grocery stores or whatever.
NJ just announced all daycares must close by 4/1 unless they only serve families of essential workers. I'm assuming ours will try to reopen if it's worth it for them, and then how can they really charge us if it's so limited? Up until now they've been closed at their own discretion, not mandated.
Although, CPA firms were deemed "essential" here, I'm not sure I'll feel comfortable yet, especially sending them with kids that might have higher exposure risk if their parents are working in healthcare or grocery stores or whatever.
Do you have any idea what this means for paying tuition? My daycare has been closed since last week (oh my god, how has it only been a week) without a refund for part of March. I was fine with that since I specifically asked if teachers were being paid and they said yes. They are being extremely vague about anything beyond the original planned return date of 4/1, which is obviously not happening now. Is there any sort of law about charging for a service/business that has been mandated to close?
NJ just announced all daycares must close by 4/1 unless they only serve families of essential workers. I'm assuming ours will try to reopen if it's worth it for them, and then how can they really charge us if it's so limited? Up until now they've been closed at their own discretion, not mandated.
Although, CPA firms were deemed "essential" here, I'm not sure I'll feel comfortable yet, especially sending them with kids that might have higher exposure risk if their parents are working in healthcare or grocery stores or whatever.
Do you have any idea what this means for paying tuition? My daycare has been closed since last week (oh my god, how has it only been a week) without a refund for part of March. I was fine with that since I specifically asked if teachers were being paid and they said yes. They are being extremely vague about anything beyond the original planned return date of 4/1, which is obviously not happening now. Is there any sort of law about charging for a service/business that has been mandated to close?
I only saw the governor tweet about so I haven’t seen any other details.
Ours was similar and had originally planned on re-opening Monday the 30th with no refund for the 1.5 weeks missed in March. They are usually pretty fast with updates but I haven’t heard anything yet.
I’m still getting my full salary but I’m obviously wildly inefficient so I feel like even though we technically can keep paying if it means teachers can keep getting paid, who knows what kind of impact this is going to have on my career in a flailing economy when my performance during this time is being compared to peers with no young kids at home. I hope they can figure something out so we won’t be expected to pay full price for April.
Post by wizardressofoz on Mar 26, 2020 20:30:35 GMT -5
We are being asked to pay 60% tuition so they can keep paying teachers. Which, I’m good with, as long as I’m getting paid.
I am WFH (FT, not just now) at an essential business but my particular role isn’t focused on the response right now, although the rest of my team is. I am also not wildly productive- I’m probably getting about 60-75% of a day in hrs wise but doing anything requiring concentration lol. It took me all day to get a calc on a spreadsheet. I have 3 and 5 year olds. They’re wild.
One daycare has asked all children whose parents are working from home or have family that can watch the kids to be pulled. They only want kids of essential workers. They have also asked to keep all of the March tuition and pay about 25% of April's tuition to hold your spot. The amount paid in April will be applied to your tuition when you return so it's not really an "extra" payment. Apparently both of these policies have people livid from what I gather based on FB comments and the stress I see in the owners themselves. I will have to pull DD since I am pseudo-essential but my husband can supervise her if I have to become essential for a few hours. I asked them to give me a few days to get my crap in order.
Update - the other daycare where DS goes sent an email they are closing as of Friday and to pay for half of April to hold your spot. Far less generous than what DD's daycare is doing but I think they are also more sought after school so they likely don't care if families complain or leave.
The other daycare where DS goes has not said a peep about money. Their attendance is also way down. I will continue to send DS until they say I can't because he is otherwise too much for me to handle all day and night with no help from the daycare or my parents (we've had to stop seeing them since my kids and I are basically vermin at this point).
The bolded is where we are, except they didn't ask to keep all of the March tuition, they're just doing it, and on 3/16 they told us in advance where to mail the April (100%) payment if we weren't back yet.
I appreciate that rent and salaries need to be paid, but childcare isn't magically coming for free, either. Any kind of recognition of that fact would be nice. H and I are both WFH full time and although we're both getting salaries, we are absolutely dying, pulling 16 hour days, 7 days a week, trying to keep the kids alive and happy and our colleagues and clients (in my case) happy. It's not healthy for us, and we're both falling behind at work despite best efforts. We're also not doing our best by our kids because of it. We have an offer from a sitter to help us out, but we can't afford to pay her to do that while we're also paying 100% to daycare.
As far as money goes, all isn't peachy there either. Yes, I'm getting my draw from my firm, but my compensation will ultimately be impacted by my drop in productivity. It will just be time shifted. So the argument that I'm getting paid (assuming 100%) so I should pay daycare (at 100%) doesn't exactly fit.
I have lost 3 pounds in 2 weeks at home so far. That sounds good (and god knows I won't miss those pounds) but this is not a healthy way to do it. It's all stress and not having time to eat.
Susie I think that’s unreasonable that they expect you to pay the full amount for April if they’re not back. I would write an email/letter and explain that you need to hire other childcare to continue doing your jobs.
One daycare has asked all children whose parents are working from home or have family that can watch the kids to be pulled. They only want kids of essential workers. They have also asked to keep all of the March tuition and pay about 25% of April's tuition to hold your spot. The amount paid in April will be applied to your tuition when you return so it's not really an "extra" payment. Apparently both of these policies have people livid from what I gather based on FB comments and the stress I see in the owners themselves. I will have to pull DD since I am pseudo-essential but my husband can supervise her if I have to become essential for a few hours. I asked them to give me a few days to get my crap in order.
Update - the other daycare where DS goes sent an email they are closing as of Friday and to pay for half of April to hold your spot. Far less generous than what DD's daycare is doing but I think they are also more sought after school so they likely don't care if families complain or leave.
The other daycare where DS goes has not said a peep about money. Their attendance is also way down. I will continue to send DS until they say I can't because he is otherwise too much for me to handle all day and night with no help from the daycare or my parents (we've had to stop seeing them since my kids and I are basically vermin at this point).
The bolded is where we are, except they didn't ask to keep all of the March tuition, they're just doing it, and on 3/16 they told us in advance where to mail the April (100%) payment if we weren't back yet.
I appreciate that rent and salaries need to be paid, but childcare isn't magically coming for free, either. Any kind of recognition of that fact would be nice. H and I are both WFH full time and although we're both getting salaries, we are absolutely dying, pulling 16 hour days, 7 days a week, trying to keep the kids alive and happy and our colleagues and clients (in my case) happy. It's not healthy for us, and we're both falling behind at work despite best efforts. We're also not doing our best by our kids because of it. We have an offer from a sitter to help us out, but we can't afford to pay her to do that while we're also paying 100% to daycare.
As far as money goes, all isn't peachy there either. Yes, I'm getting my draw from my firm, but my compensation will ultimately be impacted by my drop in productivity. It will just be time shifted. So the argument that I'm getting paid (assuming 100%) so I should pay daycare (at 100%) doesn't exactly fit.
I have lost 3 pounds in 2 weeks at home so far. That sounds good (and god knows I won't miss those pounds) but this is not a healthy way to do it. It's all stress and not having time to eat.
Ours is similar. Ours is closed to all but the children of essential workouts by county order. They’ve asked us to pay April in full if we are still salaried and to contact the director to discuss if that’s not the case. H and I have been discusssing heavily. We don’t want the teachers to suffer and we don’t feel it’s our job to offer a bailout. We also worry that we continue to pay for a period and they close anyway. OTOH, If we end on bad terms, we worry will will be struggling to find as spot elsewhere when we need one again. I approached HRyesterday about taking leave due to not being able to work remotely (effectively) and take care of my two children. And I’m not in a high powered job like you, Susie. Nevertheless, it’s still impossible.
I don't mean to sound glib, but can't the daycares lay off the teachers for however long this takes so that they can collect unemployment? Isn't that a better business decision than trying to collect from individuals to keep it going?
Even if you aren’t losing income, you may be preparing to lose income or paying for alternate care. I feel like there’s a high likelihood of aid packages for workers who are laid off and business relief, but there’s a pretty low likelihood of aid for families who kept giving money to a business who may or may not pay their teachers. There are going to be some, if not many, families who can’t keep paying. We do need a systematic way to address the problem and make sure businesses aren’t lost and teachers are paid, but it can’t be on individual families to make that happen.
To the bolded point, the federal stimulus package increases unemployment benefits very substantially for four months, which could buffer temporary layoffs of teachers and staff. There is also direct relief for businesses.
I wrote to daycare to encourage them to explore all the options, including the federal stimulus package, and to reduce tuition to the absolute minimum necessary. It doesn't feel at all fair to expect families to pay when there is federal and state relief available.
Now that the federal money for small businesses is going to be considered a grant if they keep on 100% of their staff I am really curious to see what the smaller and private daycares do. I think ours billing 70% for kids who aren’t there is a lot. At this rate our kids aren’t going back until the end of April at the earliest. I can’t keep paying this indefinitely esp since my h was laid off. I’d be interested to hear what other daycares are doing. I want to keep our spot, but it’s expensive.
I don't mean to sound glib, but can't the daycares lay off the teachers for however long this takes so that they can collect unemployment? Isn't that a better business decision than trying to collect from individuals to keep it going?
This is what led us to finally stop paying. With the new expanded UI benefits, it seems like this will allow daycare workers to fully replace their income. But, the small business loan forgiveness aspect of the stimulus has a requirement that employees continue to be paid, so I understand centers will have to weigh which is more beneficial.
My center said they'd give us a 10% discount if we keep our kids home all of April. They tried to scare us by saying centers everywhere were closing and childcare might not be available when this is all over so we'd better save our spot (paraphrased with some added sarcasm). They said they had expenses to pay including rent, supplies and staff, which I get. If they had proposed a bigger discount it would have been a harder decision. However, our favorite teacher was already laid off and filing for UE. So... we gave her money and withdrew our daughter. We did not ask for a refund for the second half of March. They are still open but only ~30% are attending.
We also hired a different former teacher to come to our home a few mornings a week to ease our stress.
I don't mean to sound glib, but can't the daycares lay off the teachers for however long this takes so that they can collect unemployment? Isn't that a better business decision than trying to collect from individuals to keep it going?
Ours said they don't want to do this because the employees will have to get COBRA then and they are pretty sure that no one would go through with that since COBRA is pricey. Though I wonder if they wouldn't qualify for Medicaid in our state at the rates unemployment pays but I guess the daycare would rather have them keep their own insurance than start navigating too many unknowns. And I've been reading mixed messages that if you furlough, you (as the business owner) can still pay for their health insurance. None of us know the answers and it seems like Congress changes bits and pieces of proposed bills every day so it's like a moving target to find out.
Now that the federal money for small businesses is going to be considered a grant if they keep on 100% of their staff I am really curious to see what the smaller and private daycares do. I think ours billing 70% for kids who aren’t there is a lot. At this rate our kids aren’t going back until the end of April at the earliest. I can’t keep paying this indefinitely esp since my h was laid off. I’d be interested to hear what other daycares are doing. I want to keep our spot, but it’s expensive.
Do you have a link for this? I only gathered that I may qualify for a 10K grant if I can get an SBA loan application in on time to claim the $10 billion they are putting aside for the grant.
I don't know if daycares are getting extra special help, but if they fall into the same "under 50 employees" category as me, it's a sh!t show to know how to proceed. Right now I'm still paying my essential employees because I am operating under the assumption that the government is not going to give me any meaningful help.
Post by icedcoffee on Mar 27, 2020 14:28:50 GMT -5
We finally got an update on what will happen with tuition. We had already been told we'll get a 50% credit for March and teachers would be paid in full. Update today is that we will not be billed for April. All staff will continue to be paid.
They then said that if you are willing and your financial situation hasn't changed they would be happy to accept "donations". 100% will go towards paying the staff. They're also working with the state to open up some childcare centers for essential personnel.
FWIW--my "daycare" is actually a company that runs day camps in the summer and before/after care programs at schools throughout the county. Daycare is only a small portion of their revenue. I'm guessing those summer camps are what is profitable enough to allow this to happen (they are not cheap). I'm also thinking that because most of their programs are in county public schools (my daycare is too) that they're probably not paying rent right now. All of that is speculation, but it does appear they have more cash than most daycares. Hopefully they'll be ok.
My H is in sales which doesn't weather recessions very well so we're going to hold off on any "donations" to our daycare for the moment.
We've gotten no virtual learning or anything, but with today's update I'm a-ok with that. See ya in a few weeks ladies!
Now that the federal money for small businesses is going to be considered a grant if they keep on 100% of their staff I am really curious to see what the smaller and private daycares do. I think ours billing 70% for kids who aren’t there is a lot. At this rate our kids aren’t going back until the end of April at the earliest. I can’t keep paying this indefinitely esp since my h was laid off. I’d be interested to hear what other daycares are doing. I want to keep our spot, but it’s expensive.
Do you have a link for this? I only gathered that I may qualify for a 10K grant if I can get an SBA loan application in on time to claim the $10 billion they are putting aside for the grant.
I don't know if daycares are getting extra special help, but if they fall into the same "under 50 employees" category as me, it's a sh!t show to know how to proceed. Right now I'm still paying my essential employees because I am operating under the assumption that the government is not going to give me any meaningful help.
Post by usuallylurking on Mar 27, 2020 17:09:40 GMT -5
I understand the frustration, and as a childcare provider I’m here to say it is no less frustrating on my part. My H and I run an in-home, together. This is our sole source of income.
1. We do not qualify for UI. Even with the stimulus package and UI expansion, our mayor has not mandated childcare to close. None of our children come from a dual essential worker home. They all have at least one parent at home, even if that means they are WFH, they are not supposed to be utilizing childcare. If we close by choice, even if it is to encourage compliance with the stay at home mandate, we are still closing by choice and therefore ineligible for UI.
2. We do not qualify for the small business loan/grant. We have no payroll.
I feel differently about childcare centers. Their employees are eligible for unemployment and, in theory, it should cost a fraction of tuition for them to “keep the lights on” aka pay the rent and utilities. But for in-home providers, it’s an incredible dilemma.
Yes, technically we are open, because we are essential. But no, none of them can come and still comply with the governor’s stay at home mandate. Yes, it is very awkward to ask for tuition in this instance, but it is also very true that without continued support there simply *won’t* be a way for us to stay in this line of work and be open when “normal” resumes. We do not operate at a large enough margin to cut tuition by more than 25%. I do not know yet if we will do this for April or collect in full, because for now there’s no real projection on when the mandate will lift. For now mid-April is still being “hoped” for.
If somebody else has a suggestion on something I may be missing in our situation, I’m happy to hear it.
In the meantime I am putting together “goodie bags” of activities and a few snacks to give to all of our families. We will either deliver to their porch or they can come pick up here, whichever they prefer. I can’t even begin to describe how much we miss all of “our” kids.
usuallylurking thanks for explaining that. We use an in home and have been paying her like normal, but I wasn't sure if she could take advantage of any of the new programs etc. Since it sounds like she can't, we'll go ahead with continuing to pay 100% (which I don't think all of the families are doing). I know she misses all the kids a lot!