Different Rates Based On Developmental Level?

[mountainside13]

I will usually bring attention to the parts with changes....either verbally, through a newsletter/coverpage, or something.

Thank you!!

[cheerfuldom]

Our area for centers has an increased rate for kids under 2 because of the student teacher ratio. I don't know of any home daycares that do that. I personally would not take a 4 year old that is not potty trained unless they were able to clean up their own messes completely. I refuse to do older kids that are not potty trained. I have a special needs 4.5 year old of my own that regularly has accidents and I cannot handle another big kid doing that, especially a big kid that did not have special needs.

[Blackcat31]

I charge the same base rate for everyone other than infants.

Infant space is HARD to come by here so I charge ONE flat weekly rate regardless of time used.

I charge the same for everyone else.

I adjust my rates according to pick up times instead of ages.

The later I have to work for a family, the higher their rate is.

Otherwise billing according to age is way too complicated.

I have a 3 yr old DCG that is 100x more mature (BOTH physically & mentally) than a couple other DCK's I have that are 5 yrs old so a rate according to age in that scenario wouldn't make sense.

I can see billing a family based on difficulty levels (of either parent or child) but so far I haven't seen anyone here or elsewhere come up with a good way of doing that. ::

[Unregistered]

My center charges this way. 0-36 mos is $125 and 36-60 is 120. There is a $5 discount for potty trained 2yos.

Wow, that is really inexpensive for infants. I work in a center also. In the infants the rate is almost 300 a week, about the same for the waddlers ( 10-15 mos) because the ratio is 4:1 in both rooms. It goes down to around 250 in young toddlers ( 15- 20 months) The ratio there is 7:1. Then we have toddlers, ( 20_-24 mos ) I am not too sure of the ratio in that room, but the rate is around 215. It goes down from there. Do you have ages 0-36 mos in the same rooms ?

[Michael]

I didn't think of it that way! Thank you! I am going to go ahead with a flat rate. One more question:
For the changes I make on my renewal contract for my current parents. Should I just give it to them and hope they notice the changes, go through it together or highlight the parts that changed?
I like the idea of highlighting it. A little less work for me but parents still know what has changed. Also don't want it to come off as rude.

Here are some threads on Rate Increase Letters:

https://www.daycare.com/forum/tags.php?tag=rate+change+notification

https://www.daycare.com/forum/tags.php?tag=rate+increase+letter

[TwinKristi]

I have to agree on the PTing thing, parents are going to be jumping at the discount when the kids aren't ready which will only make your job harder for less money.
I like the 0-2 and 2+ because like others said, infants under 2 are limited to 2 and should be more money.

[Rachel]

Don't know how it would work for you, but here the rate goes on the age the child is in September, but they keep the same rate the whole year. The cutoff is 1 year and 3 months (I think because in centers that's when the ratio changes, in reality I'm 5:1 for everyone so it doesn't make a difference). Anyway if you did contracts you could do something like that so you have the year to plan for what the rates will be. The parents accept it because in the end it all works out the same (the kid who pays 2 years of "baby" rate didn't actually have 2 full years because the first year wasn't in daycare the whole year).