Aside from the essential CONTRACT, there are some essential policies for childcare that just about every daycare owner should have in place. You know, the absolute sure-to-be pain points for most providers.
Let’s get ahead of the game and get these policies in place NOW. So let’s get right to it.
Here are FIVE essential policies, don’t sleep on them, childcare providers should consider adopting to ease parent communications and avoid being taken advantage of.
5 Essential Policies for Child Care Providers
1. Tuition Policy
Most childcare providers would probably agree that the collection of tuition is often one of the biggest pain points for them, one they confront just about every week.
Having a clear tuition payment policy, although not fail-proof, is a great way of informing your clients when tuition payment is expected and the consequences if it is not submitted as required.
How To Get Parents To Pay On-Time EVERY WEEK!
2. Drop-off/Pickup Policy
If I had to guess (and I don’t have to, LOL) I would say that if tuition is the #1 pain point, drop-off, and pick-up issues would be next or at least close behind. This is the one that parents seem to be the most casual about.
It is really helpful to spell out things out for parents. Are they expected to adhere to their contracted times or are there any limitations on hours of care in a specific Drop-off/Pick-up policy? Again, indicating what actions will be taken if the policy is not adhered to is very important. Speaking of which …
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3. Late Fee Policy
As hard as it is for many providers to enforce a late fee policy, the funny thing is it’s absolutely essential to have this policy.
This is a twofer because you need to address not only parents picking up late but also late tuition payments as well.
Picking Up Late
As far as picking up late, most providers simply adopt a policy that is aligned with what the larger daycares centers have, which is to impose a per-minute fee past the scheduled pick-up time.
Believe me, you probably will not have to impose this fee too many times to get a parent’s attention.
Late Tuition Payments
As for the late tuition payments, many providers require payment in advance of the coming week. For example payment on Friday for the coming week. Another example would be Pay-to-Play or if payment is not received prior to Monday morning, services will not be rendered.
Of all the policies, I would say this one is the one most frequently addressed. Parents just don’t seem to get the fact that late payments are very impactful, cause hardship and require you to do more work.
TIP: Consider offering bank transfers, credit card payments or recurring debits to make submitting payments a little easier on (you and) your clients.
4. Vacation Policy
Another issue for providers is the vacation policy. This is actually another two-fold policy, in that you need to specify what is expected of your clients for their scheduled vacation time as well as your own.
To avoid confusion, be clear about your policy. Indicate if full tuition or reduced is expected during these periods and how many days are allowed annually.
5. Sick & Illness Policy
Here again, is a contender for a major pain point (pun intended), which is funny because most new parents inquire about this policy in particular. Most parents are all too interested and appreciative of a strict Sick & Illness policy.
That is until it affects them.
Nevertheless, this policy is really easy to put in place since most of the licensing mandates drive it. Simply pull out your regulations and start there.
Don’t forget to include whether or not you will administer medication and under what conditions.
FIVE Essential Policies for Childcare
So there are FIVE essential policies for childcare providers. These policies could easily be included in your childcare contract and/or parent handbook.
Most of the above policies will help a provider avoid awkward interactions with parents. Having them in place provides clear communication with parents regarding your business policies and procedures.
I actually post many of my policies in a parent handbook and on my website so that they are easily accessible to clients. Here is how you can easily set up your website too.
Related Reading:
- Things I Added to My Contract
- What to Include in a Child Care Handbook
- How to handle the violators
- Get paid on time! 4 Easy Keys
2 Responses
Think I will start to Venmo request the late fee and the late pick up fee.
I think it will be easier to get them that way (instead of cash).
Thanks!!
One thing I do is require payment for the *month* in advance. Payment made on or before the first of the month = $25 discount. Parents trip over themselves to pay me and get the discount. 🙂