Dear Kids For Kids Academy Families,
I hope this message finds you and your family safe and healthy.
As you know, Kids For Kids Academy is dedicated to the care and education of your children. As our budget is tight in the best of times, the current public health crisis will have a severe impact on our school and our staff.
We suspended our tuition billing during this time, even though families are on an annual contract. There are many private schools and childcare centers that are still mandating that parent’s pay all or a portion of their weekly fees so that they don’t go out of business. As many of our families are out of work, I could not, in good conscience, do that.
Our staff is our greatest asset, the backbone of our center. Now, due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, they are out of work, and many are struggling to make ends meet. I have applied for several Small Business Loans in hopes of paying my staff their salaries as well as our rent and other fixed expenses so that when the climate is safe, we will be able to reopen our doors. Those loans will take time to come. Our fixed expenses of rent, payroll, and an insurance run about $105,000 monthly. At this time there is no revenue from parent tuition coming into the school.
Until now, I have been posting activities for families 3 times daily on our school Facebook page at no cost to families. Those posts have been pre-recorded story times and ideas to do with your child while at home. Other centers are charging families for daily activities to do with their families. As we now see that our closure will continue until Public Schools resume, presumably May 1, in order to keep our doors open, we must do something to generate some revenue for our fixed expenses and to pay our staff.
How you can help:
We will provide 30-45 minutes of daily programming for your child.
I have received emails from many families who have seen our prerecorded storytime activities and they commented that their child misses their teacher.
They have asked if we could do ZOOM meetings like other childcare centers are providing.
Here is what we will be offering starting Monday.
Your child’s teacher will hold a daily storytime, circle time, and music & movement class.
Families can click on the link to view the ZOOM meeting and your child will be able to see the teacher and participate on a daily basis. The live broadcast will be done Monday – Friday.
Currently, our Kindergarten students are doing ZOOM classes twice a day; math and science at 10 AM and language arts at 1:00 PM.
We have provided families with three weeks’ worth of materials to accompany the classes and also log in abilities to 3 on-line subscriptions.
For this program, we are asking our subsidized families to pay their current reduced weekly fee for this service and our Private Pay families $75 weekly.
Those who agree, know that these funds will almost cover the cost of our staff and on-line platform subscriptions. Kindergarten families are asked to fill out the form below to verify you are giving consent to be billed.
For our other families who are able, we are asking that you consider a weekly donation of $30. That’s just $6 per day to help offset the cost of the staff who will be recording these sessions daily. There will be no cost for our families receiving school readiness funding as they will pay the $30 for you. All monies will be used to help pay our teachers and our rent during this forced closure.
Families who are still earning a complete paycheck, who are able to contribute more are asked to choose an amount you think is fair for such a service, knowing that in doing so, you are helping to ensure that our school will be able to open when we are directed to do so.
All FAMILIES are asked to fill out the form at the bottom of this correspondence so that your account can be billed the amount of your choice.
Families with more than one child are asked to choose an amount that you feel is fair so that we can use funds to compensate for our amazing staff during this time. You choose an amount that works for your family during your current situation. Once you fill out the form, you will get an email with the link to the ZOOM meeting specific to your child’s class. Download the free ZOOM app and click on the link I will send you.
Families who are on auto-debit, your accounts will be drafted weekly starting Monday.
Families who are not on auto-debit, we will bill your account and ask that you send payments weekly through ZELLE, Cash APP, PayPal or VENMO. For those who are not on autopay and do not have any of the apps mentioned, you are asked to sign up for one of them. When we do reopen we will not be accepting cash or check payments, to limit our staff exposure to handling currency.
CASH APP- $kidsforkidsacademy
ZELLE- bethdavis@kidsforkidsacademy.com
PayPal – bethdavis@kidsforkidsacademy.com
VENMO – @Beth-Davis-162
There are lots of policy and procedural changes that are coming prior to our reopening. We are working with medical experts and others in our industry to come up with a plan for daily operations that will enable our students and staff to be safe and healthy at all times. As soon as that is complete, it will be sent to all families.
Thank you in advance for your incredible generosity.