Part time child care cost: Cost of Care – Child Care Aware MN

Child Care 101 for Manhattan Families: Cost, Wait List, Programs

There’s no place on earth quite like Manhattan, and that goes for trying to find child care there as well. The Manhattan child care scene is an eclectic mix of diverse daycare options, prestigious preschools, universal pre-K programs, and sometimes mile-long waitlists. There are a lot of important things to consider when searching for the right child care for your kids, but there’s no reason why choosing one has to be a major source of stress.

Here, we’ve gathered everything you need to know about the Manhattan child care scene to help you pick the right preschool or daycare for your child.

What types of child care will I find in Manhattan?

First, let’s start with the basics. How is daycare different from preschool, and what about that whole universal pre-K thing?

Here’s the breakdown:

• Daycare: Programs for infants to preschoolers that are meant to provide activities, learning opportunities, and socialization. These programs help kids adjust to learning and playing in a group setting and can be structured or more free-form, depending the type of program being offered and the ages of the kids.

  View different daycare options on Winnie: 

• Preschool: Programs for 2–4 year olds that are designed with kindergarten readiness in mind. Curricula can vary widely, but these programs are all generally more structured, follow a part-time or full-time “school day” schedule, and are meant to help kids adjust to a classroom environment.

  Find a preschool option on Winnie: 

• Pre-Kindergarten: As of February 2018, NYC kids born in 2014 are eligible for universal pre-kindergarten (pre-K), which the New York City Department of Education describes as “free, full-day, high-quality pre-K in a safe learning environment with opportunities to participate in engaging activities and interact with other children and teaching staff.”

While preschool programs are among the most sought-after in many major metropolitan areas, in Manhattan the introduction of universal pre-K and the need most parents have for affordable, full-time care has led to a massive surge in the popularity of daycare. Preschool is, of course, still on many parents’ radars, but as our data shows, just the difference in the availability of daycares versus preschools in Manhattan is pretty staggering. There are 1,387 daycares in Manhattan, compared with 283 preschools, and the competition to get coveted spots at all of these different care centers can be fierce.

What are the different programs being offered?

Manhattan’s daycare and preschool options are as diverse as New York City itself. If parents are looking for a bilingual play-based co-op four blocks away from their office, they can probably find that. In fact, according to our data, kids in Manhattan have the option to learn Spanish, French, Japanese, Russian, German, Hebrew, and Mandarin, depending on which daycare or preschool parents choose.

And unlike many other cities where Montessori’s reign supreme, Manhattan parents are all about the play-based programs. Almost a quarter of care providers stick to a play-based curriculum. What’s the difference? While both play-based and Montessori approaches center play in the learning process, Montessori schools tend to be more child-focused, meaning the child sets the day’s activities based on what they’d like to do, while play-based classrooms give kids freedom to explore and experiment within teacher-directed activities.

Another 20% of Manhattan kids attend schools with an academic, tech, or arts-based curriculum. And a small group — around 3% of Manhattan kids — attend a school with a blended curriculum that exposes them to elements of many different teaching and learning styles.

Where to start your search

Most parents look for child care that’s either close to home or in the same neighborhood as their employer. In Manhattan, parents can easily find child care in either of these locations, though some neighborhoods have more options than others.

Parents looking in the northernmost parts of Manhattan (in Harlem and surrounding neighborhoods) have the biggest selection when it comes to choosing a daycare, likely because those are the areas that more and more families are calling home. Parents looking on the Upper East Side and Upper West Side also have a plethora of places to choose from — over half of all the preschools in Manhattan are located here!

Based on our data, the number of daycares and preschools starts to decline near Midtown and through lower Manhattan, though that’s not say parents who live or work in these areas are without options. Chelsea alone is home to over 100 daycares and preschools, while Murray Hill and Gramercy Park claim 95, Greenwich and SoHo have 50, and the Lower East Side is home to 171 different care providers. Basically, no matter where you are in Manhattan, you can find quality child care to meet your needs.

And no matter where you look, you can find daycares and preschools that accommodate all schedules. About half of all Manhattan daycares are set up to provide full-time care and more than a quarter provide after-care for kids coming from part-time preschool or other school-day programs.

Parents in most metropolitan areas are told to start looking for child care as soon as possible once they have kids, and that advice couldn’t be more true than it is for Manhattan parents. According to one local expert, the average Manhattan daycare has around a 1-year waitlist for infant placements, and the waitlist can be up to 2 years for kids over 12 months old. This means the golden rule for Manhattan child care is: start looking as early as possible.

Most daycares enroll new students year-round, with more availability in the early spring and in the fall, when kids are graduating into new classrooms or moving on to pre-K or Kindergarten.

That said, openings and enrollment depend largely on the type and size of the program. Parents should start searching and applying to programs especially early if they:

• Know for sure they’re going to need full-time, full-year care in a specific neighborhood.
• Plan to seek child care assistance through a subsidized or needs-based program, as these often have wait lists.
• Are interested in less common programs in Manhattan, like a Montessori school or one with a blended curriculum.

So, how much is this going to cost?

Price is a huge factor for most families considering child care. According to a recent Winnie survey, about 36 percent of parents cite cost as the reason they end up skipping daycare and preschool altogether.

The average cost of child care in Manhattan is between $1,300 and $2,500 per month. On the high end, that is more than twice the national average. And unfortunately, most Manhattan daycares and preschools don’t offer scholarships or financial assistance.

There are a variety of factors that can influence the price of care.

Babies and young children almost always have a higher tuition. In Manhattan, the average cost of full-time care for an infant or young toddler is around $,1800 per month.

Child care will also be more expensive for parents who need care outside of typical hours — for example, if a parent works nights or weekends, or has to hire a nanny or find an alternate program. Prices also go up for more prestigious programs or if a particular preschool or daycare is located in a more affluent part of the city.

Now that you know what you’re looking for, here’s how to start your search.

At winnie.com/manhattan/childcare, we’ve gathered data on every licensed daycare and preschool in Manhattan, so everything you need to get started is all in one place, no matter which neighborhood you call home. Winnie, a marketplace for parents to find preschools and daycares near them is free to use, and the directory can be accessed with or without a sign-up. If you do sign up, you also have the ability to post questions to local parents and get answers in real time.

Start by entering your zip code of your home, office, or anywhere you prefer, to make drop-offs and pick-ups easy. When you reach the search results page, you’ll have the option to drag the map around, search for programs by age, and filter by type of facility and schedule.

The Winnie listing for each daycare and preschool is designed to give you a starting point in your search. It has descriptions of each place, hours of operation, photos, and sometimes tuition and enrollment information. And you can bookmark or pin the ones you‘re really interested in so it’s easy to go back and grab their contact info.

Finally, many people aren’t aware that information pertaining to the schools’ license is publicly available.

Definitely check this out! You can find a link to the school’s license on their Winnie page, under “Contact Information.”

All licensed preschools and daycares are inspected regularly and these inspections are public information. You can also see if complaints have been filed against the school and even subscribe to updates in case their licensing status changes.

Check out Winnie’s full directory of Manhattan daycares and preschools at winnie.com/manhattan/childcare

Rates for child care are going up, squeezing parents and providers

Lisa Lawrence reads to Evie Bostock, 5, at the Child Care Center in Norwich on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2020 in Norwich, Vt. A former pre-school teacher, Lawrence works in the office at the center but sometimes helps to cover classrooms. Photo by Jennifer Hauck/Valley News

This story by Nora Doyle-Burr was published by the Valley News on Jan. 18.

WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Families of children who attend the Green Mountain Children’s Center in White River Junction and Claremont received a note earlier this month notifying them that the cost would go up between 28% to 30% beginning in February.

The nonprofit is just one of many child care centers in the Twin States dealing with pressures around the tight labor market and training requirements for workers caring for young children, with some saying the industry is at a “crisis point.”

The Jan. 3 notification, from Green Mountain Executive Director Sharon Miller-Dombroski and Board Chairwoman Natalie Chaput, said the nonprofit had to raise rates in order to cover expenses.

“Our tuition rates have lagged behind our counterparts in early education for many years,” they wrote of the increase, which could be as much $77 per week for infants. “While it was a benefit to GMCC families, it has become a detriment to the overall financial health of the organization.”

Green Mountain, which cares for about 80 children between the ages of 6 weeks and 6 years in White River Junction along with another 60 kids in Claremont, closed its Lebanon location on Heater Road in 2016, citing the challenges of rising costs. Green Mountain also provided after-school care at Dothan Brook School in Wilder and Ottauquechee School in Quechee until last fall, after the Hartford School District went out to bid for the service and selected a different provider.

“Changes in program offerings and revenue impact the bottom line for any business,” Miller-Dombroski said via email.

The rate increase brings the full-time rate for children — depending on their age — to between $253 and $270 per week in Claremont and between $275 and $350 per week in White River Junction. The cost to care for infants is highest because centers are required to have lower teacher-to-child ratios for the younger children.

Brandee Platt, whose 2-year-old daughter Kennedy attends Green Mountain in White River Junction, said she looked at other options after getting the notice that rates would be increasing, but ended up deciding to keep Kennedy there.

There’s “nothing that compares to the care that she has there,” Platt said.

Similarly, Doug Anton, whose 3½-year-old and 8-month-old daughters also attend the White River Junction center, said they will continue to go there after the rates increase. Though his family will need to dig into their emergency and retirement funds to cover the additional $7,500 annually, the cost is still competitive with other day care providers in the Upper Valley.

The Anton family, from left, Maddie, 3, Riley eight months, Arianna, and Doug, sit down to dinner together at home in West Hartford, Vt., Friday, Jan. 10, 2020. Arianna, a critical-care nurse educator at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and nursing teacher at Colby Sawyer, and Doug, a teacher at Hartford High School, said they are planning to dig into their emergency and retirement funds to cover an expected price increase for their girls’ day care. Photo by James M. Patterson/Valley News

“We’re very lucky that we have that level of savings that we’ve spent time building up,” he said.

The Antons are in good company in having to dig deep into their pockets to cover child care costs in the Upper Valley. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services suggests such families spend no more than 7% of their income on child care. But in the Upper Valley, the average cost of care for just one infant (about $10,498 annually) is equivalent to about 16% of the median income of families in the region, according to a 2018 report from the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire.

Both states offer subsidies for lower-income families, but families who earn above those thresholds — $4,721 per month for a family of four in New Hampshire and $6,438 per month for a family of four in Vermont — don’t qualify for that support.

Paying for care is only part of the challenge for families; the Carsey report also found that the Upper Valley was about 2,000 licensed slots short of those needed to care for the region’s young children.

Green Mountain is not alone among Twin State child care providers in struggling to manage the costs of running a child care center, which include regular costs of rent and utilities, as well as the increasing costs of wages for staff who are required to have higher levels of training than they once did in a competitive labor market.

Just last week, the weekly newspaper Seven Days reported that three Loveworks child care centers in the Vermont communities of Milton, Montpelier and South Burlington are set to close on March 13 due to budget issues and difficulty finding teachers who meet the state’s education requirements. The closings leave 90 infants, toddlers and preschoolers in need of alternative care, Seven Days reported.

Two other Loveworks centers on Shelburne Road in South Burlington and Essex will stay open, but will raise rates by 12% at the end of February, Seven Days said.

The tight labor market can mean that child care providers are unable to serve even up to the number they are licensed to care for. Such is the case for the nonprofit Child Care Center in Norwich, which currently has about six fewer children than it is licensed to care for, said its director Allison Colburn.

“Our big challenge right now is workforce,” Colburn said. “There is nobody to hire. All the centers are talking about what can we do to incentivize people to come work for us and to stay with us once they’re here.”

Though the challenges of balancing the quality and cost of care aren’t new, Colburn said they are at the worst she’s seen in her 37 years at the Child Care Center.

“You can go work at Shaw’s and have a whole lot less stress,” Colburn said. “When you leave your shift you can walk away. When you’re working with young children you can’t do that.”

While some families can absorb increases in rates, Colburn said others get creative with scheduling to have a grandparent or other relative take the kids one day a week or work a weekend day in order to have a weekday at home with the kids, she said.

“Our whole industry is kind of in a crisis point right now,” she said.

Doug Anton, of West Hartford, picks up his daughter Maddie, 3, from the Green Mountain Children’s Center in White River Junction, Vt., after a day of teaching at Hartford High School Friday, Jan. 11, 2020. Anton expects the cost of day care at GMCC to increase by 28-30% beginning in February. The nonprofit daycare has to raise rates in order to cover expenses. Photo by James M. Patterson/Valley News

Child care workers in Vermont make a median wage of $13.27 per hour and a mean annual wage of $29,430, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In New Hampshire, they make even less: a median wage of $11.11 per hour and an annual mean wage of $23,940.

The “economics do not work currently,” Let’s Grow Kids CEO Aly Richards said in a phone interview from home while she tended to her sick 1-year-old twins on Jan. 9.

While parents can’t afford to pay more, child care workers can’t afford to make any less, Richards said. She said the solution is greater public investment in child care to improve wages for workers and the quality of the care.

Richards, whose Montpelier-based organization aims to make high-quality, affordable child care available across Vermont by 2025, described the rate hike at Green Mountain as the “canary in the coalmine” for the troubled industry.

Child care providers also are working creatively to cut costs. Val Raney, who directs the for-profit 4 Corners Children’s Center in Hartland, said she has asked some of her workers to leave early when there are more staff than needed to maintain the required teacher/child ratios. Even though it means some of them might not get in their 40 hours a week, a few have agreed to do so.

“It’s pinching pennies, but it helps,” Raney said. “We need state funding or federal funding to survive.”

The for-profit FitKids Childcare at the River Valley Club in Lebanon is taking an unconventional approach to recruitment and working with Ascentria Care Alliance, a nonprofit that resettles refugees in Concord, in hopes of bringing new Americans to the Upper Valley to work.

“This is groundbreaking for us and maybe for the whole Upper Valley,” said Lisa Bozogan, FitKids director.

Though there are still several steps to work through before refugees come to work at FitKids, such as addressing language barriers, housing and transportation, Bozogan said she’s confident they can overcome them and hopes that doing so will allow the center to enroll more children. Due to staffing challenges, FitKids currently cares for just 150 of the 188 children it is licensed to care for, she said. And the center has about 140 children on its waiting list.

In the interim, Bozogan said she pays high school students $11 an hour — which is just above the new Vermont minimum wage — to help out in the afternoons after they get out of school. Though they cannot be left alone with the children, due to licensing requirements, they help the center’s other teachers.

“It is a full-time job trying to recruit employees, honestly,” Bozogan said.

As a result of the increase at Green Mountain, at least one family has given its notice, Miller-Dombroski said. Others would be making “difficult decisions,” she said.

“We expected that,” she said in a phone interview.

The organization is doing what it can to raise money for scholarships, she said.

“We hope we can make it work,” she said.

Anton also said he’s hopeful that the rate increase will be sufficient to balance the organization’s books so it can stay open and continue providing the care his family and others rely on.

“It is so tough to find a spot,” he said.

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Does the length of service giving the right to annual paid leave include part-time work of an employee during parental leave?

Home \ Free consultations \ Pay and working conditions \ Does the length of service that gives the right to annual paid leave include part-time work of an employee during parental leave?

Consultation provided on 07. 09.2017

After considering the question, we came to the following conclusion:

Part-time work during parental leave is included in the length of service that entitles you to annual paid leave.

Monthly allowance is paid only to employees who are on parental leave (including those working during this leave on a part-time basis). The interruption of such leave in any case entails the termination of the payment of benefits.

Conclusion justification:

1. According to the first part of Art. 121 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, the length of service giving the right to annual basic paid leave includes the time of actual work, as well as the time when the employee did not actually work, but in accordance with labor legislation and other regulatory legal acts containing labor law norms, collective the contract, agreements, local regulations, employment contract retained the place of work (position), including the time of annual paid leave, maternity leave, days off and other days of rest provided to the employee.

The periods not included in the vacation period are listed in the second part of Art. 121 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, including parental leave.

However, while on parental leave, an employee may work part-time or work from home. Being on vacation in such a situation is provided for by the legislator specifically for the purpose of maintaining the right to receive a monthly allowance (Article 256 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation). For an employer, the period of performance by an employee on parental leave of work duties at home or on a part-time basis should be considered as the time of actual work and, accordingly, be included in the vacation period. Judicial practice confirms this conclusion (the cassation ruling of the Investigative Committee in civil cases of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Mordovia dated February 21, 2012 in case No. 33-297/13, ruling of the Altai Regional Court dated February 1, 2012 N 33-870/12). A similar approach is also set out in the clarifications of Rostrud (see, for example, letter dated 10/15/2012 N PG / 8139-6-1, as well as question-answer 1 and question-answer 2 from the information portal “Onlineinspektsiya. RF”).

Thus, the length of service that gives the right to annual paid leave includes the time the employee worked on a part-time basis during parental leave.

Note that in order to provide an employee with annual paid leave, he must interrupt his parental leave by submitting an appropriate application. So, in paragraph 20 of the resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of January 28, 2014 N 1 “On the application of legislation regulating the labor of women, persons with family responsibilities and minors” it is expressly stated that a woman who is on parental leave with the preservation of the right to receiving mandatory social insurance benefits and at the same time working part-time or at home, annual paid leave is not provided, since the Labor Code of the Russian Federation does not provide for the use of two or more holidays at the same time.

This means that it is not possible to be on parental leave and paid annual leave at the same time. An employee who wishes to exercise his right to paid annual leave must interrupt parental leave. A similar opinion is shared by Rostrud (see, for example, letter dated 10/15/2012 N PG / 8139-6-1, question-answer 1, question-answer 2, question-answer 3). Interrupted parental leave may subsequently be renewed.

2. Within the meaning of Art. 256 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, the procedure for using the right to parental leave until the child reaches the age of three is determined by the employee at his own discretion. Accordingly, an employee who is on parental leave has the right to interrupt it at any time and return to work (see also, for example, the ruling of the Krasnoyarsk Regional Court of April 23, 2012 N 33-2070, the ruling of the Yaroslavl Regional Court of 09.12.2010 N 33-6407).

At the same time, the provision of employees with a monthly allowance for child care is regulated primarily by the norms of the Federal Law of December 29, 2006 N 255-FZ “On Compulsory Social Insurance in Case of Temporary Disability and in Connection with Motherhood” (hereinafter – Law N 255-FZ) .

Part 1 of Art. 11.1 of Law N 255-FZ determines which of the employees is entitled to a monthly allowance for child care. These are mothers, fathers, other relatives or guardians who actually care for the child and are on leave to care for him.

The right to a monthly child care allowance is retained if the person on parental leave works part-time or at home and continues to care for the child (part 2 of article 11.1 of Law N 255- FZ).

As follows from these rules, the monthly allowance is paid only to employees who are on parental leave. Therefore, the interruption of such a vacation entails the termination of the payment of benefits (see also, for example, the decision of the Sverdlovsky District Court of Belgorod dated July 18, 2011 in case N 2-2173 / 2011, the decision of the Sosnogorsky City Court of the Komi Republic dated September 23.2016 in case N 2-1354/2016). The fact that during the period of interruption of the said vacation the woman will work on a part-time basis does not matter, since the payment of the mentioned benefit is directly related to the fact that the employee is on parental leave.

Response prepared by:

Legal Consulting Service Expert GARANT

Naumchik Ivan

Response quality control:

Reviewer of the Legal Consulting Service GARANT

Voronova Elena

Vetlugina, working as an assistant secretary, turned to the director of Progress LLC

Vetlugina, working as an assistant secretary, turned to the director of Progress LLC with a request to set her a part-time job, with payment for the time actually worked. She motivated her request by the need to care for a child who is 7 years old. The director refused Vetlugina, referring to the fact that the charter of the LLC does not say anything about the possibility of working on a part-time basis.

Did the director do the right thing?

How should the issue of establishing part-time work be resolved in this case? On the basis of which article of the Labor Code?

April 30, 2015, 15:28 , Tatyana, Moscow

Marina Kizilova

Lawyer, Podolsk

Article 93. Part-time work work, and subsequently part-time (shift) or part-time work week. The employer is obliged to establish a part-time (shift) or part-time work week years), as well as a person caring for a sick family member in accordance with a medical certificate issued in accordance with the procedure established by federal laws and other regulatory legal acts of the Russian Federation.
(as amended by the Federal Law of 30.06.2006 N 90-FZ)
When working on a part-time basis, payment
of the employee’s labor is made in proportion to the time worked by him or depending on the amount of work performed by him.
Work on a part-time basis does not entail for
employees any restrictions on the duration of the annual basic
paid leave, calculation of seniority and other labor rights.
Art. 93, “Labor Code of the Russian Federation” of December 30, 2001 N 197-FZ
(as amended on 04/06/2015) {ConsultantPlus}

The employer is wrong. Labor relations are regulated by labor legislation, and not by the Charter of the company.

April 30, 2015, 15:36

Similar questions Define object, subject, objective side, subjective side.

November 22, 16:47 , question No. 3502878, Polina, St. Petersburg

Automobile law

Want to take the case to court, how to resolve this situation, tell me?

Hello. I would like to know what to do in the situation. A man wants to pin a case on me that I broke his glass in the car, he provided a video where nothing is visible, but it is shown that I just approached the car. And also that he grabbed me and pulled me away from the car. I want to take the case to court, how to solve this situation, tell me?

November 22, 14:34 , question No. 3502765, Yulia, Moscow

Enforcement proceedings

Is it possible to somehow solve this case in my favor with minimal losses?

There is a debt to Svyazona bank. Didn’t pay. Then the debt was paid to collectors in 2019, they sued and the bailiffs filed a Sberbank card, I opened another Tinkoff card and alimony came to it. The bailiffs did not touch her. I used it easily. I work specially not officially and the salary is dripping on the alimony tax. In July, 3 years later, the bailiffs sent a letter “Decree on the termination and return of the ID to the recoverer” because there was nothing to take from me.

But the collectors directly sent a court order to the bank and now the alimony card was arrested. I would like to know if this is legal. What collectors directly applied to the bank? Is there a statute of limitations for such debts? Is there a statute of limitations on such court orders? And what to do in such situations? It turns out that if I open an account in another bank, then the collectors will directly apply there with a court order?

Can I somehow solve this case in my favor with minimal losses?

November 22, 10:20 , question No.