the Price of a Day of After School Daycare

I use the "Before and After" care provided at my son's school. The cost is for after school only, before school is extra. He goes directly after school to the gym, and stays until 6pm. They offer a snack, and various activities.

I am quite impressed with the level of care my son gets in this program. The child-to-adult ratio is fairly high, but the staff plans new and interesting activities for the kids every day. They are never bored. I trust that he is safe there, because they are always vigilant about who the children leave with. If someone other than me picks him up, they always make sure that person is on the list of people who I've approved to pick him up. They check I.D. too.

I really like that the staff always makes sure to tell me what kind of a day he's had, and what he did. They clearly pay attention to each child.

The other thing I like about this program is that if there is a snow day, they refund the tuition you paid for that day. Other day care programs I've used did not. I've had daycare programs that closed frequently for snow days, and charged the parents the full amount anyway.

I would make sure that the program has a good policy in use for checking who leaves with the child. Many programs have policies about this, but get lax about it. I would go visit, and see if the kids are having fun. See what the kids are allowed to get away with. Are they being nice to each other? Is the staff paying attention to what the kids are doing?