What to charge for SA children with transportation

[msmegandc]

I'm in California and will have a family with 2 SA kids next year. Currently, one is with me full-time and the other is after school and on holidays and vacations. I also pick this child up from school. Next year, I will be picking the other one (who starts Kdgn). One will be out at 11 am and then I will have to go back at 2:30 for the other. I'm trying to figure out going rates for these types of care. They are getting a really good deal now for both kids, so I don't want to reduce my wages a lot, especially given I will be transporting 2 times daily for this family. The school is a 20 minute drive, Any suggestions??

[Childminder]

You can find out the fuel cost on Mapquest.com when you insert the addresses. There is a pop up where you can put your vehicle and it will calculate fuel costs. I use it for all my school transports and add to childs care accordingly. As far as for the care cost do you charge hourly or half day rates?

[spud912]

Do you currently pick up the older child? If so, do you charge a premium for the transportation? If not, they may think it is unfair to start charging for transportation.

As far as the other child, how many hours per week would he/she be in your care? If it's more than 5 hours a day or 30+ hours, I would consider charging full-time still. You can say that this child is taking a full-time spot so would need to pay for that. Hopefully this will recover some costs for the inconvenience and gas/vehicle maintenance.

[mom2many]

For my s/a I charge $30/ day. I take one dcg to school in the morning, but the others just come after school. It gets crazy making 3 trips - 1:30, 2:30 & 3:00.

I charge $40 for full time for infants & preschoolers and needed to have consistent pay and not lose very much of my income, since the s/a still take a spot. I charge the same for them regardless of whether it's a vacation day from school or not.

I did have one family want to just pay me hourly for after school care, so I explained that I had to get a minimum of $20 for after school care only. I charged them $10 for transportation & $10/hour for care from 3:00- 4:00. Bottom line- it's simply not worth it for me to do it for less than $20.

Hth

[MarinaVanessa]

I'm charging extra based on mileage. I use the standard mileage rate.

[JLH]

I'm in Washington and I do my rates a little differently than most because it isn't by age. We only take full time kids, 4 or more days per week. Children age 1 to the start of kindergarten are $30 per day. Children attending 1/2 day kinder are $25 per day. Children attending school all day are $20 per day, regardless of school closures, 1/2 days, early release, etc. We've only enrolled 1 school age child since we re-opened a year and a half ago, and we terminated him a week after enrollment for violence toward the little ones. We do have a few kids that come and go on buses throughout the day for the school district's special needs preschool program but the school bus stops right in front of our home so we don't need to transport. I used to have to transport a mile and a half each way to the school bus stop, on a windy and narrow gravel road, with 8 kids by myself, 3 times a day. I had to buy a 12 passenger van for that and it was a lot of extra work. So glad I don't have to do that anymore but I do miss the chance to get out of the house and it was great to be able to take field trips.