What are the child/adult ratios in a daycare?
By Bella75
@nixxi76 (3191)
Canada
May 28, 2008 5:47pm CST
A friend and I are going to open a daycare and need as much information as we can get. We have been working so hard on it within the last two weeks as we are looking at July (next month) as our target date on when to open. We are doing this from her home and we spoke to the licencing place today and they said she is allowed 8 children in her home. We were thinking we wanted at least 6 kids each.
My question is this.. do you have any idea of how many kids/children/infants per adult we're allowed?
1 response
@jungletime (221)
• United States
29 May 08
It varies from state to state. I have a daycare in my home and I'm allowed 6 infant through pre school and 3 school age children. Are you going to get lisenced? If not, that may be why you're allowed less. Before I was lisenced I was only allowed 4. It also depends on the space you have to work with-you need enough to have the maximum and it has to be approved by fire/health/safety and child care lisencing bureau. Getting lisenced is a bit of a process, so if your planning on it-get started asap. Your state child care lisencing bureau will give you all the info you need. Also be prepared for it to take a while before all your openings are filled, especially in the beginning before word of mouth sets in! Good Luck and don't get discouraged.
1 person likes this
@nixxi76 (3191)
• Canada
29 May 08
My business partner and I want to start a daycare out of her home at first. Today we checked into getting a business licence and they told us that it would cost $1500.00 just for the daycare licence. OUCH! We were planning on having 6 children each but if were were licenced the law would not allow that. She was told she could have a maximum of 8 and I"m not sure if that's the total limit permitted in her house, or is she allowed 8 then am I allowed 8? The policy was not quite clear. They also told her that we would have to go up infront of the town counsel and answer a lot of questions about our daycare business. To me that sounds stressful but I know I'm not in this alone and having her by myside helps me get through the nervousness.
Also, we are trying to apply for funding either a loan or grant. We have the papers and what they want now is a business plan which we're working on. It's taking sometime as it is a 15 page questionaire.
Did you get your licence too?
We are in Canada so I think the policies and laws are different for us.
I'm trying not to get discouraged and that's why I would like to start in her home so we can do our own policies and not by the towns.
@jungletime (221)
• United States
29 May 08
Wow! 1500 for a lisence? I didn't have to pay anything. If I had someone working with me, I'd be allowed double the amount of children-space permitting. I had to go in front of the town zoning board too-it was stressfull but it turned out to be no big deal. I had one neighbor who was concerned that I would have tons of cars here at any given time and his driveway would be blocked! So rediculous! The kids come and go at different times and the parents park in my driveway. So his concern didn't have any impact and it went fine, and I only had to do that once, not every time i renew. Good luck. Keep posting your progress!
