Reply to MD parents: You're going to want to do everything you can to keep your kid's spot

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is OP. I’m not a daycare owner; I’m simply a parent who received this guidance from the school and wanted to pass it along, because it’s the first I’d heard of this. I expect other schools will do the same because I frankly don’t know of any other way to prioritize families, when you’re in a position where you can’t accommodate everyone.

It absolutely sucks, but I honestly don’t know another way. [/quote]

Did they say this when school closed? That if you paid in full you would get priority when they reopen? If so it makes sense. If not there’s going to be a major situation.[/quote]

DP but how would they have known this then?[/quote]

What they said is that paying full tuition would ensure your spot when they reopen. I don’t think SO many people paid full tuition that this wasn’t a reasonable statement.

There is a $0 tuition option, but they were very clear that this only reserved your spot for that month. Nothing else was guaranteed.

Then there are intermediary tuition options that give you access to various distance learning options. These people are prioritized, but lower than essential personnel and full-tuition paying families. [/quote]

Okay, so that's very clear.  At first it sounded like you were at one of the places where they stopped charging but then asked people to voluntarily donate their monthly fees in whole or in part if they could.  If one of those places then says "Hey, we're in a bind trying to figure out who gets to come back, so we're going to give it to the people who chose to donate the most to us while we were closed, even though they were never asked to pay to hold their spot or told that they amount they paid has anything to do with who gets a spot," that's a different story. [/quote]

Is it though?  The daycare is in a bind.  It can't accommodate all its families.  What is a fair way to allocate spots?

It sure seems the it would be reasonable for them to say that, as a thank you/tangible benefit, they would give spots to those who had been making voluntary payments all along.  I don't think that is unfair.  People who make all sorts of donations to causes/businesses get perks.  I don't see why this is different.

Unfair and illegal are two different things, but I also don't see how that would be illegal.  It seems a perfectly reasonable solution to deal with a perfectly imperfect situation.[/quote]

Well, it's definitely very different from a situation where you know in advance that you have to keep paying to hold your spot, as opposed to being explicitly told "you don't need to pay, but we'd appreciate it if you can afford to contribute a little something" and then later on hearing "whoops, you were making hard decisions about your family's finances but it was secretly a test, and everyone who could comfortably afford to keep paying gets to stay!"

I would think if you have to cut families it's probably best to just do some kind of random number generator thing, luck of the draw.  It still really, really sucks for the families who lose their spots, but [b]at least it's not unfair[/b] and would result in less hard feelings.  [/quote]

"Family A, I know you have been paying full cost for the last 4 months.  We really appreciate it.  But sorry, our random number generator selected Family B, who hasn't paid a dime in the past 4 months, for the final open spot we have.  Sorry, we have to cut you loose - thanks for your donation!"

That isn't unfair?  [/quote]

We must have really different definitions of fairness.

Do folks really think that it's fair to say that only the richest families deserve to go back to daycare, and those who can't afford to make thousands of dollars of voluntary donations to their daycare during months when their own paycheck may have been cut dramatically due to furloughs or fewer hours or lower wages or loss of self-employment income don't?

You think it's unfair to tell people who could afford to make huge donations that their wealth and generosity doesn't make them and their kids better and more deserving than everyone else.  I think it's unfair to tell the richest families (who can probably afford a nanny if they lose the spot) that they get to keep their daycare, while the families who earn less and donated less or none get kicked out and probably have no option for child care besides one of the parents quitting their job.

[/quote]

These are businesses, not nonprofit or governmental agencies! So many things in life are unfair or not right based on socioeconomic status and ability to pay. I agree it could be argued that this is unfair, but business is not here to be fair. Period. Not saying its right, but its the way it is. Its not illegal. Sure you can try to litigate it, but that's not going to get your kid a spot 3 months from now...... [b]The government would need to step in and dictate some solution. NEVER will happen with current administration, they could give less than 1 **** about kids or middle class people[/b]. [/quote]

Is there nothing on this board that won't be blamed on Trump?

Daycares are not, and have never been, regulated on a federal level.  Rules are set on the state and at times local level.  The idea that the federal government under any administration would dictate national rules on how to mandate daycares reopen and allocate scarce spots when opening at less than full capacity is laughable.[/quote]

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