Schedules and hours
Backup and emergency care
For the morning your usual arrangement collapses. It works only if you registered before that morning, which is the whole of the advice on this page.
Every family with two working adults has this morning two or three times a year. The childminder is ill, the school has closed, the grandparent who covers Thursdays has had a fall, the au pair has given notice. It is not an emergency in any dramatic sense and it is completely destabilising.
Backup care exists for exactly that, at $32 an hour. The rate is higher than our ordinary hourly rate because it is booked at short notice against a place we have held rather than sold, and holding a place empty is the only way a service like this can be there when you call.
Register now, use it later
This is the entire mechanism and it is the part families skip. Registration is free, takes about twenty minutes, and puts the health form, the immunisation record, emergency contacts and collection authorisations on file.
None of that can be done on the morning you need it. The health form needs a physician's signature and takes days. A family ringing at half past seven with no file is a family we cannot help, however much we would like to.
So register when nothing is wrong. Put it on the list with the smoke alarm batteries. It costs nothing and it expires only if you move away.
What we can and cannot absorb
We hold a small number of places back across the toddler, twos and preschool rooms rather than selling them full-time. That is what makes an answer possible at short notice, and it is also why the number is small.
The infant room is the hardest. One adult to four babies in a group of eight leaves very little slack, and backup infant places are genuinely rare rather than merely limited.
And a snowy Monday when three schools have closed is a morning when we will be full by seven. First come, first served, and a straight no once the room is full — because the alternative is exceeding what our permit allows on the premises.
What backup care is not
It is not care for a sick child. A child too unwell for their usual setting is too unwell for this one, and we have no sick room. Backup is for a well child whose arrangement has failed, which is a different problem with a different answer.
It is not a substitute for a place. Families sometimes try to run a working week on backup sessions and it is both expensive and unsettling for a child. If you need three days, book three days.
Our permit caps how many children may be here at once. Our permit states the maximum number of children who may be on these premises at any moment the programme is operating, set by the Health Department from the space, the teaching staff and the certificate of occupancy. That number counts children present, not children enrolled — so an hourly child takes up a permitted place in exactly the way a full-time child does. This is the honest reason we cannot always say yes to a drop-in, and the reason to be sceptical of anybody in New York City advertising unlimited same-day availability. It is a legal ceiling, not a scheduling preference.
Included as standard
What is included
$32 an hour, two-hour minimum
Higher than the ordinary hourly rate because the place is held rather than sold.
Free registration in advance
About twenty minutes, and it does not expire.
A place in the room for their age
The same room, adults and meals as any other child that day.
Meals within the hours booked
At no supplement, as for every child.
A small number of places held back
Across the toddler, twos and preschool rooms. This is what makes short notice possible at all.
A straight answer at seven in the morning
Including a no, with which other days that week have room.
The same daily note home
Sleep, food, mood and one specific thing that happened.
No charge for holding your registration
It costs nothing to be registered and unused, for years if necessary.
When to make an appointment
Signs this is worth an assessment
- You have two working adults and no local family to fall back on.
- Your usual arrangement is one person, and one person can be ill.
- You want to sort this out now rather than at half past seven on a bad Tuesday.
- Your school closes for days that your employer does not.
- You have used a national backup-care benefit and found nothing available within an hour of home.
- You want to know in advance that the answer on a snowy Monday might be no.
Backup care — what it costs
- Higher than the standard hourly rate because it is booked at short notice against a place we have held rather than sold. Registration is free and takes about twenty minutes, and it must be done before the day you need it.$32 / hour
Every rate on this site is published in full on the tuition page, including the ones that make us look expensive. Meals, snacks, nappy changing, settling-in sessions and the whole curriculum are inside the weekly fee — there is no premium tier and no outside provider invoicing you separately for a music class. The two charges that are not in the weekly fee are registration, at $75 a year per family rather than per child, and late collection after 6:15pm at $1 a minute, which goes to the two members of staff who stayed. If your child is three or four, read the 3-K page before you read this one.
Questions we are actually asked
Backup care — frequently asked
Can I use backup care without registering first?
No, and this is the thing worth acting on today. Registration puts the health form, immunisation record and authorisations on file, and the health form needs a physician's signature which takes days. A family ringing at half past seven with no file is one we cannot help however much we want to.
Why does backup cost more than ordinary hourly care?
Because the place is held rather than sold. We keep a small number of places out of full-time sale across three rooms so that a short-notice answer is possible at all, and the higher rate is what pays for the empty ones.
Can you take my child if they are ill?
No. A child too unwell for their usual setting is too unwell for this one, there is no sick room here, and an adult sitting with one child is an adult removed from a ratio elsewhere. Backup is for a well child whose arrangement has failed.
What about snow days when everything closes?
We will be full by seven. Places open at 6:30am, first come first served, and once the room is full the answer is no — because the alternative is exceeding the number of children our permit allows on the premises.
Can I use backup care as my regular arrangement?
Please do not. It is expensive per hour and unsettling for a child who never knows whether today is a nursery day. If you need three days a week, three fixed days at 65% of the full rate is cheaper and much better for them.
Related programmes
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Hourly & drop-in
Genuinely hourly, genuinely bookable, and genuinely limited — because our permit caps how many children may be in the building at once.
$28 / hour
Holiday care
The days the public schools close and nobody else does. Published in September for the whole year so you can plan around them.
$95 / day
Part-time
Fixed days only, and we will tell you plainly which combinations we can actually staff before you rearrange your work around one.
45% or 65% of full
Early & late
The half hour at each end that turns an impossible commute into a possible one.
$45 / weekTuesday and Thursday mornings, while the children are here
Come and see the room
A tour here happens during a session, in the room your child would actually be in, at the time of day they would be in it. You meet the person who leads that room rather than only the director, and you see the noise and the mess that are genuinely there. It takes an hour. If your child is three or four we will ask whether you have applied for free 3-K or Pre-K for All before we quote you a rate, because a good many families should not be paying us at all.