Congratulations on your new venture! How fortunate your
children will be to have somebody spending the day with them
that is already experienced in ECE.

My child care is preschool, but not a set apart time each
day, rather all through their day. I have all teachers
children, so I'm closed in most of June and all of July. I
also have the school holidays off that the teachers in our
district have off. Anytime I am closed; holiday, vacation,
snowday, - the parents DO NOT pay me. Anytime I am open,
even if their child does not attend - they DO pay me.

I figured my price by deciding how much income I wanted to
make an hour, and multiply that by the hours I'll be open
each week for business. Then I figured expenses for a week,
and add that to your weekly wage. Divide by the number of
hours you will be open. This is my base price for 18 mths -
kinder. I figured extra for infant and less for after school.

I charge by the week. One price for infants, another price
for 18 mth - kinder, and another price for after school.

The price is the same, no matter how long the children are
here. The price is for the reserved full-time spot for the
child, not for the child's actual hours.

On 11/11/08, newbie wrote:
> Hi. My husband and I have decided to open a home day care
> and have started our area's classes for being licensed. I
> have many years experience in early childhood ed. I was
> wondering for those of you who have more of a pre school
> element to your programs if you could answer some of my
> questions?
>
> 1) How do you base your tuition for families? Do you figure
> a cost over a nine month period and then factor in the
> holidays into that cost and charge families the same amount
> per month whether the child is there every day or not?
>
> 2)How many breaks do you take each year? Sounds like some
> of you take a two week break around the holidays. That
> makes sense. Then in December do you half your payment?
>
> 2)Are there other times that you close during the year? I
> was thinking the week over the 4th of July or/and maybe the
> first two weeks of August due to the last minute summer
> trips many families take before the start of school for
> their older children.
>
> 3)Do you have parents sign a contract for a set amount of
> time, figure the cost for the entire school year, and
> divide that into monthly payments?
>
> 4)I was thinking of having two cycles of contracts: June-
> July, or mid August to May or that could be extended into
> June-July if needed.
>
> Thank you for any input. We just decided to do this this
> week so a lot of things are going through my mind.

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