A child’s absences may affect early childhood education client fees. Absences may include parental leave, absence due to illness, holidays, or other reasons.
Impact of parental leave on fees
Parental allowance days can be used until the child turns 2 years old. Parental allowance days can be used in several parts. A child cannot attend early childhood education on parental leave days. Parental leave does not affect the right of other children in the family to participate in early childhood education, nor the client fee charged for them.
No early childhood education client fee is charged for the period or days of absence if it is reported in accordance with the following instructions by email to varhaiskasvatus(at)hameenlinna.fi.
If the absence lasts more than 5 days but no more than 13 weeks, report it one month before the start of the absence.
If the absence is recurring and lasts 1–5 days at a time, it must be reported one week before the start of the first absence.
A condition for the fee waiver is that the absences have been reported in advance in accordance with the instructions mentioned above (Early Childhood Education Act, Section 15).
The child’s right to the same early childhood education place is maintained during an absence of up to 13 weeks due to parental leave.
Impact of illness-related absences on fees
Please report a child’s absence due to illness to the daycare centre or family daycare provider as soon as the child’s illness begins. Enter the absence due to illness (‘Sick’) in the Päikky attendance calendar. Absences due to illness accumulate billable hours.
If a child is absent due to illness for 11 or more working days during the same calendar month, half of the usual fee is charged as the client fee. If the child is absent due to illness for all working days of the entire month, no fee is charged at all.
Please note that a child’s absence from early childhood education cannot be changed to an illness-related absence retrospectively.
Impact of other absences on fees
If the child is absent for all care days in a calendar month, half of the regular monthly fee is invoiced. If the child has even one day of attendance, the full monthly fee is invoiced.
Starting and ending early childhood education
If a child starts or ends early childhood education in the middle of a month, the fee is only charged for the days when the child has had a valid placement in early childhood education.
Free July
No monthly fee is charged for July if the child started in municipal early childhood education in August of the previous year or earlier, meaning the child has been in early childhood education for more than 11 months. No fee is charged for July even if the child is in care.
If the child has been in early childhood education in another municipality since August of the previous year and the early childhood education continues uninterrupted in another municipality’s area, July is free of charge for the family. Please report this by email to: varhaiskasvatus(at)hameenlinna.fi.
Note that a penalty fee is charged for uncancelled care bookings, even if the child would otherwise have a free July.
Fee charged for unreported absences and uncancelled care bookings during holiday periods
In Hämeenlinna’s early childhood education, a fee is charged for unreported absences and uncancelled care bookings during on-call periods in accordance with the Early Childhood Education Client Fee Act and the decision of the Hämeenlinna Education and Welfare Board (LANULA 11.4.2017 §28).
The guardian must ensure that the necessary care booking, absence entry, or illness-related absence entry is marked for the child in the Päikky booking calendar for each day. All absence entries must be marked before the start of the booked care time.
The fee is charged if the child has five (5) or more uncancelled care bookings or unreported absences during an on-call period (during school autumn and winter holiday weeks and the Christmas and summer on-call periods).
Unreported absence: If the child has no care booking or absence marked (empty calendar), the absence is interpreted as an unreported absence.
Uncancelled care booking: If the child has a care booking but does not attend, the absence is interpreted as an uncancelled care booking.
After the care calendar has locked, sudden changes to care times due to work or studies are arranged in cooperation with the daycare centre director.
The fee is half of the family’s monthly early childhood education fee. The fee also applies to families whose fee is normally 0 euros. In this case, the fee is half of the smallest fee charged (currently 32 euros). Unreported and uncancelled absences are checked and fees are invoiced during August–September.
