After school program increasing to over $300 month!

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My daughter’s attend a small Christian school. The tuition for this school (in comparison to others) is reasonable. They also have an “aftercare program”. Basically there is one adult and a high school student that take care of the children. There is a room that the kids can do homework/play quiet games and a gym to play in – when the weather is nice they bring them outside. That is the gist of the program.

The price for this also has been reasonable about $100 week for two children (the first is $60/second child is $40) from 2:30 until 6:00. Now mid-year about a month prior to 2011, they inform us they are going to increase the prices for this program. OK, it has been going up steadily, but no big increases. Now it is going to be $180 week for two – an 80% increase – we find out the beginning of this week.

After receiving this – I did send an email asking is there a discount for the second child like tuition/prior year aftercare – they must have gotten a good deal of flack on this because all of a sudden they gave a discount for the second and said this will be for the remainder of this year so there will be no discount next year.

This school has felt like a family before – but I cannot possibly afford over $300 more a month. Currently we make enough money to pay our basic expenses each month with a small amount left over. I feel betrayed – there was no explanation for this increase – just a notice. And also feel it is unfair to increase mid-year where you are already committed to the school year. The school has been slowly losing students as everyone is feeling the economic pinch. I plan to write a letter, but feel too emotionally involved at this point. Any thoughts on what I should include to have an impact?

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[+5] - Linkat - 12/10/2010Because if I did reach into my wallet, I may not be able to feed my children. We are just making are monthly bills with our pay at this point in time. We do have some money saved for the rainy...

@Linkat,

Quote:

This school has felt like a family before – but I cannot possibly afford over $300 more a month. Currently we make enough money to pay our basic expenses each month with a small amount left over. I feel betrayed – there was no explanation for this increase – just a notice. And also feel it is unfair to increase mid-year where you are already committed to the school year.

There's a good start.

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We've seen that here too with parochial schools, they steadily lose attendance
due to increased tuition and aftercare $$. You probably will have a considerable tuition hike for the 2011/12 school year as well. It certainly isn't fair to raise
the after school tuition to such an extend, but being hard pressed for funds, they
probably won't budge. Can you get a high school student to watch your girls
after school? I am sure they'd welcome the additional income and it's a lot cheaper than the school asks for.

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I would inquire whether you could assist with any Sunday service labors, to compensate for the difference between what you can afford, and what they are asking you to pay.

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@Linkat,

Given that the inflation rate had been roughly flat for over two years I wonder why this school have a need for ever increasing fees.

Something does not smell right.

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@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Something does not smell right.

Er... what?

The school loses tuition-paying students, and is spreading the same costs among fewer customers.

It makes some sense, except for the fact that they're pricing themselves out of the market.

If they're losing customers, they should be trying to attract new ones and trying to keep their current customers. Unless their actual plan is to do away with the after care.

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@CalamityJane,

My older daughter is probably old enough to stay home alone for the few hours - there is just no way to get her home from there. The school does not provide any transportation.

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@DrewDad,

That was my thought - they have too many kids in aftercare so they skyrocket the prices to deter this and thus punishing the parents that need the extra care and that have little options.

We are considering sending them to public school next year. We are looking to move and the one bright side is now we have a larger area to search for a home as we were looking to stay close to this school.

I do have a birthday party to go to this weekend - I plan to seek out any other aftercare parents to see their thoughts. One thing is they are going to lose a parent that does almost all the field trips and the basketball coach which I and my husband volunteer for and considering I have to take a vacation day off for field trips - what about my one day pay?

One other thing is they can no longer count on our money for any other fund raisers - maybe I'll just include a note with the next one - sorry already paid for this in aftercare.

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@DrewDad,

If you pricing yourself out of the market you cut your costs of doing business anyway you can figure to do so and lower your prices not raised them.

Trying to get more customers by so doing beside keeping your old ones.

Economic 101...........................

Beside the fixed cost of the school is going to be the same after school care or not after school care program and the only real added costs is going to be the adults needed to look after the children and how must can that be?

Such schools never had been high paying as far as teachers are concern in the first place let alone teachers aids.

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@Linkat,

Quote:

That was my thought - they have too many kids in aftercare so they skyrocket the prices to deter this and thus punishing the parents that need the extra care and that have little options.

As I said an after care program should be a money maker for them a profit center so why the hell would they wish to limit the numbers of children in the program?

Second by doing so they are likely going to drive you from having your children in that school along with others parents and that once more does not made sense by any economic theory I had ever hear of.

Something does not smell right unless they had fools running the school that can not even do simple spread sheets.

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@BillRM,

I agree completely. I actually have a Masters Degree in Economics. I was very close on providing a basic economics lesson to the school.

Also, in the program they have one adult and one high schooler each afternoon that works from 2:30 until 6:00 - giving them an extra half hour for getting ready/closing (and typically most kids are picked up about 5:30 - 5:45 - can't be late - that gives a total of 40 hours a week for pay. So how much per hour - is $20 reasonable? That is $800...so it would take about 4 or 5 kids to break even and like you said no additional costs besides that.

Believe me - being a numbers person I've already done calculation - which of course irks me all the more.

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@BillRM,

It was a vote by church - my guess whoever is on the board of the church.

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@Linkat,

Linkat is there a oversight board for this school with members that you can talk to about this matter to find out what their thinkings in behind their price structure?

I do not have a degree in Economics just a few courses at the college level and my readings on the subject over the years however it seem insane on it face.

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@BillRM,

I'll have to look at the structure throughout. I am not sure if the administrator is in favor of this or not. Obviously she has a say, but my gut would say she would be against this if it is strictly a financial reason. I'd think she'd realize dealing with students slowly leaving the school, it wouldn't be a good thing.

If it is for reasons around lowering the numbers in aftercare - there does seem to be quite a lot of kids in aftercare, then I'd say otherwise.

I do know some parents that are very active in the church - I plan on mentioning to them that I do not have a choice but to pull my kids out of the school because of the increased cost - and see their reaction to sort of get a pulse on things.

The nice thing is - tonight is the Christmas musical so the opportunities abound for talking with others.

Do you think it is worthwhile to reach out to the other parents I know who are in aftercare and maybe pull us together as a team?

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@Linkat,

At one time - we were supposed to relocate out of state - it was supposed to be over the summer so we did not re-register for the school. The whole school knew why as it is such a small school. It ended up not occurring. The classes do have limited size - my younger daughter's grade was full, but they made an exception for us (they call it a hardship exception).

I believe it is because we always pay our bills on time, our children are extremely well behaved and do well in their classes. The younger daughter's teacher commented, I'll have my back to the class and then there is all this noise, I turn around and all the kids are fooling around, but little Linkat is sitting there with her hands folded not making a sounnd.

My older daughter is complemented in aftercare and received what is called a gold slip - because she takes care of the pre-schoolers and kindergarters and cleans up all the toys/coloring books, etc even when she isn't using them. She also was second for academics in her class (and most likely be first this year as the top student left for economic reasons). She is also the only one to place from the school in the regional spelling and typically wins awards for the school for the math olympics.

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@Linkat,

I know - I am venting a bit, trying to get it off my shoulders more so - to prevent it being emotional for me.

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@Foofie,

Foofie wrote:

I would inquire whether you could assist with any Sunday service labors, to compensate for the difference between what you can afford, and what they are asking you to pay.

One should not forget that exchanging "labor," for something more tangible, might very well be considered "bartering" by the Internal Revenue Service. In that situation, the "value" of your labor would be income (the amount of "discount" your labor obtains) to you, that is taxable to you. The free IRS "publication 17" gives an overview of this type of "barter income." In effect, the thought of exchanging one's labor for a "discount" may not be advantageous, once a taxable situation is considered?

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@Foofie,

Quote:

One should not forget that exchanging "labor," for something more tangible, might very well be considered "bartering" by the Internal Revenue Service. In that situation, the "value" of your labor would be income (the amount of "discount" your labor obtains) to you, that is taxable to you. The free IRS "publication 17" gives an overview of this type of "barter income." In effect, the thought of exchanging one's labor for a "discount" may not be advantageous, once a taxable situation is considered?

In the real world how likely is this kind of low level bartering going to come to the attention of the IRS?

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@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Quote:
One should not forget that exchanging "labor," for something more tangible, might very well be considered "bartering" by the Internal Revenue Service. In that situation, the "value" of your labor would be income (the amount of "discount" your labor obtains) to you, that is taxable to you. The free IRS "publication 17" gives an overview of this type of "barter income." In effect, the thought of exchanging one's labor for a "discount" may not be advantageous, once a taxable situation is considered?

In the real world how likely is this kind of low level bartering going to come to the attention of the IRS?

I have no idea; I believe one should always go by the letter of the law.

Your question is inappropriate for someone like myself.

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@Foofie,

Quote:

I have no idea; I believe one should always go by the letter of the law.

Your question is inappropriate for someone like myself.

LOL So when you purchase an item on the internet do you report it to your state and pay the sale tax due on it?

Just because federal law does not allow states to mandate that the online merchants collect or even hand over the sale information to them does not mean that you do not legally owe such taxes to your state.

So unless you are the one in ten millions that does pay your state sale taxes on such items give me a break.

Letter of the law indeed.

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After school program increasing to over $300 month!

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