Are Your Rates Based on the Pick-Up Time?

Most family child care providers charge by the week and have a set drop-off and pick-up time. Their rates are based on the age of the child.

Of course there are a lot of variations to this general pattern. Some providers charge by the month or hour, some parents have different drop-off or pick-up times, and some providers charge different fees for different reasons.

But until today I had not heard of providers who base their rates solely on the time the parents pick up their children, not on how many hours the child was in their care.

I saw this in a discussion on Daycare.com where a number of providers shared their policies.

For example, one provider said she charges $120 a week if the parent picks up her child at 4pm, $125 if the pick-up time is 4:30pm and $130 if the pick-up time is 5pm. These rates are the same regardless of when the parent drops off her child.

One provider had a parent ask her why she was paying more than another parent even though her child was in care for fewer hours. In other words, a parent who dropped off her child at 9am and picked up at 5pm would pay $130 a week for 8 hours of care, whereas another parent who dropped off at 7am and picked up at 4:30 would pay $125 a week for 9.5 hours of care.

The response to this parent should be, "I charge based on pick-up time, not the number of hours your child is in my care. It's a policy of mine that works for me."

There is no law that says you can't charge strictly based on pick-up times, rather than hours in care.

There are good reasons to charge more for a later pick-up time. As one provider put it, "Late afternoon hours are the most labor-intensive hours. Children are tired, hungry and ready to go home for dinner. Earlier pick-up benefits both the children and the provider."

You can set whatever drop-off or pick-up time you want with parents and they don't have to be the same for each parent. You can set these times based on a family's schedule or on your schedule. You can allow one parent to drop off an hour earlier than all other parents. You can allow one parent to pick-up an hour later than all other parents without charging an extra fee.

As long as your schedule of drop-off and pick-up times aren't based on race, sex, religion, ethnic background, national origin or disability, you can do whatever you want for whatever reason you want. Note: some states also prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or other protected classes.

What are your policies? Do you charge a set weekly rate (regardless of how many hours the child is in care), or by the number of hours in care, or strictly by the pick-up time? Or something else?

Tom Copeland - www.tomcopelandblog.com

Image credit: https://www.minnpost.com/greater-minnesota/2020/08/how-minnesotas-child-care-industry-has-managed-to-hang-on-amid-the-pandemic/

For more information, see my book Family Child Care Contracts and Policies.