New Spring Street Rates as of December2024
As mentioned in the email sent to all Spring Street families on December 18thm 2024:
Because our family-run daycare program is unique in its educational, staffing, and special interests, our monthly tuition has been higher than that of "big box" daycare franchises that run for 12 months per year. However, we designed our program to include special programming and to ensure our families were not forced to pay for 12 months of care, whether they needed summer care or not. This programme was designed so that our families could save up to $1,608 annually.
Our rates must be approved by the provincial government and the Child Care Fee Reduction Initiative. While the government agrees that our fees are justified in order to run our unique program, they will not grandfather the fees that we have had since 2016, to our new facility at Spring Street.
Our tuition rates have always included:
Flexibility in school pick ups and drop offs:
- We have shuttles going to and from different facilities and schools to accommodate many families and their schedules.
Enhanced programming including:
- Bringing in specialised music teachers and gymnastics coaches
- Working on special entrepreneurship projects
Over-Staffing:
- Having extra staff on hand (above and beyond standard care ratios) to help in the classroom
Flexible summer schedules:
- Families have never been forced to pay for any summer care in order to secure their spot for September
- Families have been able to choose 1-9 weeks of summer camps with discounts for multiple weeks of care
Rest assured that:
Your care will not change substantially this year, other than a slight reduction in the number of staff who will be caring for the children. We will still match or beat the standard daycare ratios.
Your monthly fees for the year will be reduced by approximately $85 per month.
In order to survive with these new fees, we will have to make a few changes to our program, but you can be confident that we will continue to offer the absolute best programming and teaching team we can. We are attempting to decrease our administrative costs as much as possible to mitigate this change.
What this means:
Standard Care Ratios: Because we pride ourselves on not being “just a daycare” but instead providing an engaging and unique curriculum, we have always “overstaffed,”- meaning that we always have more teachers on the floor than Fraser Health Licensing requires in order to better help the children to learn and socialize. As we must downsize expenses, we will be abiding only by the licensing standards; we must emphasize that these ratios are designed to ensure that children are safe and cared for. Though the care model will shift slightly, our commitment to each child’s unique needs remains unchanged.
Summer Care Changes: We have always given families the flexibility to pay for only the care time needed for summer, and still have their spots reserved for the next year. This has saved our families an average of $900 per year. Unfortunately, the government does not recognise that paying a bit more monthly for admin costs can save families more than that if they only pay for the care they need. We are still working out what this will look like and will likely have summer registrations for full months only, as opposed to weekly. In order to keep your spot, we may have to ask that you register for at least one full month. We want to reassure you that we do not want to go to the system where you pay for the entire summer just to keep your spot for September. We are looking at ways to keep your flexibility for summer registrations while keeping our administrative costs down.
Early School Dismissals: We will continue to pick up for early school dismissals but there will be a $50 charge for the year for the students from the Spring Street location. This charge has been included in your monthly tuition changes. Early dismissals will still be included in the regular fees for the other locations.
“Outside staff”: We will be limiting the number of “outside teaching staff” brought into our programme. For example, we will no longer be able to bring a dedicated music teacher to the facility, but we will continue our music programme with our amazing daily staff.
Transportation for the 2025-26 School Year: We will not be able to pick up children from different schools and then deliver them to different facilities. This requires a lot of administrative overhead. All children who need transportation to Porter and Seaview schools will likely attend the Moody Street facility. We will bear the brunt of this for this school year as we have already committed to contracts with families.
We want to assure you that we have fought tirelessly over the past four months to maintain the program you know and love intact. We understand how important it is for families to know that their children are receiving the best care and education, and we share that same commitment. Our team is passionate about delivering unique, high-quality programming for every child, and we’ve worked hard to find solutions that allow us to continue offering the best care despite these new challenges. We truly appreciate your understanding and continued support as we navigate these changes, always with the goal of providing the best for your children.
We wish that the government subsidy programs would allocate and distribute the funds directly to the families, to be used at the registered daycare of their choice, instead of getting involved in the type of programs 'opted-in' daycares can provide. Our unique program allowed us to meet the needs of twice as many families each summer, as we didn't require families to register for and pay for time they did not want to attend. We are sad to not be able to deliver the full program that we have developed, at this location. And we regret that, on average, the monthly savings will likely be more than offset by the increased fees that families have to pay for summer care that they do not need.
On a brighter note, the credits for the changes to your Sep-Dec fees will be applied to your accounts before the January fees come out, and all future months will be reduced as well. For those of you wanting to leave these fees in your account to be used for summer care, please let us know.
Katherine, Danita & the B8 Admin Team
Because our family-run daycare program is unique in its educational, staffing, and special interests, our monthly tuition has been higher than that of "big box" daycare franchises that run for 12 months per year. However, we designed our program to include special programming and to ensure our families were not forced to pay for 12 months of care, whether they needed summer care or not. This programme was designed so that our families could save up to $1,608 annually.
Our rates must be approved by the provincial government and the Child Care Fee Reduction Initiative. While the government agrees that our fees are justified in order to run our unique program, they will not grandfather the fees that we have had since 2016, to our new facility at Spring Street.
Our tuition rates have always included:
Flexibility in school pick ups and drop offs:
- We have shuttles going to and from different facilities and schools to accommodate many families and their schedules.
Enhanced programming including:
- Bringing in specialised music teachers and gymnastics coaches
- Working on special entrepreneurship projects
Over-Staffing:
- Having extra staff on hand (above and beyond standard care ratios) to help in the classroom
Flexible summer schedules:
- Families have never been forced to pay for any summer care in order to secure their spot for September
- Families have been able to choose 1-9 weeks of summer camps with discounts for multiple weeks of care
Rest assured that:
Your care will not change substantially this year, other than a slight reduction in the number of staff who will be caring for the children. We will still match or beat the standard daycare ratios.
Your monthly fees for the year will be reduced by approximately $85 per month.
In order to survive with these new fees, we will have to make a few changes to our program, but you can be confident that we will continue to offer the absolute best programming and teaching team we can. We are attempting to decrease our administrative costs as much as possible to mitigate this change.
What this means:
Standard Care Ratios: Because we pride ourselves on not being “just a daycare” but instead providing an engaging and unique curriculum, we have always “overstaffed,”- meaning that we always have more teachers on the floor than Fraser Health Licensing requires in order to better help the children to learn and socialize. As we must downsize expenses, we will be abiding only by the licensing standards; we must emphasize that these ratios are designed to ensure that children are safe and cared for. Though the care model will shift slightly, our commitment to each child’s unique needs remains unchanged.
Summer Care Changes: We have always given families the flexibility to pay for only the care time needed for summer, and still have their spots reserved for the next year. This has saved our families an average of $900 per year. Unfortunately, the government does not recognise that paying a bit more monthly for admin costs can save families more than that if they only pay for the care they need. We are still working out what this will look like and will likely have summer registrations for full months only, as opposed to weekly. In order to keep your spot, we may have to ask that you register for at least one full month. We want to reassure you that we do not want to go to the system where you pay for the entire summer just to keep your spot for September. We are looking at ways to keep your flexibility for summer registrations while keeping our administrative costs down.
Early School Dismissals: We will continue to pick up for early school dismissals but there will be a $50 charge for the year for the students from the Spring Street location. This charge has been included in your monthly tuition changes. Early dismissals will still be included in the regular fees for the other locations.
“Outside staff”: We will be limiting the number of “outside teaching staff” brought into our programme. For example, we will no longer be able to bring a dedicated music teacher to the facility, but we will continue our music programme with our amazing daily staff.
Transportation for the 2025-26 School Year: We will not be able to pick up children from different schools and then deliver them to different facilities. This requires a lot of administrative overhead. All children who need transportation to Porter and Seaview schools will likely attend the Moody Street facility. We will bear the brunt of this for this school year as we have already committed to contracts with families.
We want to assure you that we have fought tirelessly over the past four months to maintain the program you know and love intact. We understand how important it is for families to know that their children are receiving the best care and education, and we share that same commitment. Our team is passionate about delivering unique, high-quality programming for every child, and we’ve worked hard to find solutions that allow us to continue offering the best care despite these new challenges. We truly appreciate your understanding and continued support as we navigate these changes, always with the goal of providing the best for your children.
We wish that the government subsidy programs would allocate and distribute the funds directly to the families, to be used at the registered daycare of their choice, instead of getting involved in the type of programs 'opted-in' daycares can provide. Our unique program allowed us to meet the needs of twice as many families each summer, as we didn't require families to register for and pay for time they did not want to attend. We are sad to not be able to deliver the full program that we have developed, at this location. And we regret that, on average, the monthly savings will likely be more than offset by the increased fees that families have to pay for summer care that they do not need.
On a brighter note, the credits for the changes to your Sep-Dec fees will be applied to your accounts before the January fees come out, and all future months will be reduced as well. For those of you wanting to leave these fees in your account to be used for summer care, please let us know.
Katherine, Danita & the B8 Admin Team