Contracted Hours, Showing Up Late, But DC Still Open?

[daycare]

So I work on contracted hours. My daycare is open from 7:45-6:00.

I have one family that is contracted from 8:30-5:30 3 days week

This family all of a sudden has started coming late to pick up. The first time I waived the late fee, second time, I handed them a late fee slip.

They were very mad and their response was: "I don't see why i am getting a late fee, your DC is still open, there are kids still here and it's not like I am causing any harm."

My response was, that we have a contract and you have agreed to a certain time fame, based on what you are paying for DC. If you need to change your contract, please follow the PHB guidelines of asking for a contract change.

they have refused to pay me on 3 occasions and so today I will let them know that if the fees are not paid by tomorrow that the NO pay NO play clause will go into effect.

For those of you that work on contracted hours and have a similar situation, do you charge?

[youretooloud]

If I am open, they can be here. I don't get upset unless they run past my work hours.

But, I have much shorter hours than you do, so I might feel differently if I were working longer hours.

[SilverSabre25]

ugh, that's a sticky one and I'm curious to see others' answers. Personally, in my business, I'm not going to charge a late fee unless the late pick-up goes beyond my self-appointed (though totally not advertised!) "closing time" of 6 PM. That's about when my last dck is contracted to be gone by. I can see it being VERY hard to get a parent to pay a late fee when there are still kids there and you aren't actually closed. I've never actually had to charge a late fee though so I have no experience with it.

Good luck!

[laundrymom]

Contracted care is just that. I charge for later than contracted pickups.

[Live and Learn]

The reason I wouldn't want that to continue is that sometimes (not often) I might need to close a half hour early ....so the later pickups would be coming to get their kids by 5:30. This parent would be assuming they could stay until 6:00.

Also sometimes if we have a half hour between pickups we might walk around the block and we couldn't do that if we were waiting for a late parent.


Parents like me on time for drop off and I like them on time for pick up.

[momofboys]

I would definitely charge something. Doesn't matter if you are still open.

[morgan24]

I also do the contracted hours and charge the late fees if they come after their agreed pick up time. I don't charge if they ask me ahead of time. It doesn't matter to me if there are other kids here or not. That is none of their business what my contracted hours with others are, they agree to certain times and I expect them to stick to them.

[daycare]

I also do the contracted hours and charge the late fees if they come after their agreed pick up time. I don't charge if they ask me ahead of time. It doesn't matter to me if there are other kids here or not. That is none of their business what my contracted hours with others are, they agree to certain times and I expect them to stick to them.

I agree....my fees increase for pickup after 5:30 and if they want a later pick up then they are going to have to pay a higher rate.

[e.j.]

Contracted care is just that. I charge for later than contracted pickups.

Same here. If someone calls me before they're late to ask if it's possible for me to watch their kids a little longer, I'll charge them at the regular rate. If they don't call me at all and just show up late, my late fees kick in. If they need a regular pick-up for 6:00, they should ask for a change in their contracted hours and pay for that extra half hour.

[daycare]

Same here. If someone calls me before they're late to ask if it's possible for me to watch their kids a little longer, I'll charge them at the regular rate. If they don't call me at all and just show up late, my late fees kick in. If they need a regular pick-up for 6:00, they should ask for a change in their contracted hours and pay for that extra half hour.

This is exactly what I do.... I also have in my PHB that regardless of notification or not, anyone that is more than 15 min late will be charged the late fee less 5 minutes

[PeanutsGalore]

Stick to your guns! I contract 45 hours per week. If a parent consistently goes beyond these hours, I would handle it just like you did. It doesn't necessarily matter if they are great clients overall or not; they are paying for X amount of time and using X+Y. Not fair, and it sets a precedent for the future that they can smile, be nice, pay on time, and then ignore any other rule they feel like ignoring.

Have they been late picking up since you asked for late fees?

[MG&Lsmom]

The reason I wouldn't want that to continue is that sometimes (not often) I might need to close a half hour early ....so the later pickups would be coming to get their kids by 5:30. This parent would be assuming they could stay until 6:00.

Also sometimes if we have a half hour between pickups we might walk around the block and we couldn't do that if we were waiting for a late parent.


Parents like me on time for drop off and I like them on time for pick up.

This is exactly it. And they aren't respecting you by refusing to pay. You better believe if you were late to open they'd expect compensation.

[daycare]

Stick to your guns! I contract 45 hours per week. If a parent consistently goes beyond these hours, I would handle it just like you did. It doesn't necessarily matter if they are great clients overall or not; they are paying for X amount of time and using X+Y. Not fair, and it sets a precedent for the future that they can smile, be nice, pay on time, and then ignore any other rule they feel like ignoring.

Have they been late picking up since you asked for late fees?

Nope, not since I threw a late fee bill at them.....

[jojosmommy]

If I am open AND they are not attending more than 10 hours per day then I don't charge them. I explain that kids don't need to be at daycare more than 10 hours per day, no matter what hours those are and if they want a different drop off/pick up time I can see if I can accommodate that and re-write their contract.

If you already charge extra for pick ups after 5:30 then I would explain to them that they will be charged for that late time too. Even on days they pick up early. Contracted time.

I would remind them that it is hard for kids to typically get picked up at X time and then get picked up later sometimes. Kids don't understand that. I would also say, "we were going to go on a walk or do such and such but since I didn't know when you were coming we couldn't" . I would try to make it sound like you were thinking of the kids first.

[daycare]

If I am open AND they are not attending more than 10 hours per day then I don't charge them. I explain that kids don't need to be at daycare more than 10 hours per day, no matter what hours those are and if they want a different drop off/pick up time I can see if I can accommodate that and re-write their contract.

If you already charge extra for pick ups after 5:30 then I would explain to them that they will be charged for that late time too. Even on days they pick up early. Contracted time.

I would remind them that it is hard for kids to typically get picked up at X time and then get picked up later sometimes. Kids don't understand that. I would also say, "we were going to go on a walk or do such and such but since I didn't know when you were coming we couldn't" . I would try to make it sound like you were thinking of the kids first.

I have a pretty consistent schedule of how I do things around here. At 5 pm I start clean up of the DC and the more kids I have the harder it is for me to get it done. I close at 6, this means all of daycare is closed and put away by 6. I don't have a janitor that comes in and cleans after the DC is closed, I am the janitor and I am not going to wait until 6 to clean things up. If I did that would mean that I would be working a 12+ hour day...