Parents who are late when picking up their little ones from leisure centres will soon be forced to pay a penalty in some towns! Who is affected?
The start of the school year is still a long way off, but parents who have gotten into the habit of picking up their children late from leisure centres may have to reorganise their plans before September! Welcoming children from nursery and primary schools before and after school, the School-Associated Leisure Centres (CLAE) have specific opening hours. In the evening, they generally close their doors between 6pm and 7pm depending on the city. Their internal regulations are specific to each establishment, but they often specify that if parents are late for more than a certain period, they will incur additional charges, the amount of which varies.
On the other hand, in the event of significant delay, children are handed over to the police. These measures aim to encourage parents to be more punctual, but they sometimes prove insufficient. Thus, faced with the increase in repeated lateness of parents at the end of the day, the Toulouse city hall has decided to strike hard and implement a substantial penalty from the start of the 2024 school year, according to the site Toulouse News.
“Every year, several hundred parents are observed to be late in the evening. However, each of these late arrivals requires two facilitators to work outside of their working hours, which impacts their personal and family lives.“, indeed regretted Adèle Berrada, director of childhood and leisure at Toulouse town hall, in a letter sent to parents of pupils.”We would also like to inform you now that from the start of the school year in September 2024, any delay recorded in the evening may result in the invoicing of a flat rate of 30 euros, corresponding to the salary cost of the two facilitators who are forced to stay“. “However, educational measures will be taken in the application of this measure, which aims to remind people of the importance of punctuality.“, she added before specifying that other cities like Strasbourg, Lille, Bordeaux and Marseille have already taken “similar tariff provisions“.
This future measure has already provoked the anger of François Piquemal, the deputy of the 4th constituency of Haute-Garonne, who believes that it stigmatizes “residents who have inflexible jobs and are far from home and their children’s schools”. “This is much more than just compensation for the (insufficient) salary of our animators and it is an exorbitant sum for many families“, also protested the elected representatives of the opposition group Alternative Municipalité Citoyenne in the city of Toulouse.
But this outcry does not seem to discourage the Toulouse town hall, which persists and signs.”We are not targeting occasional delays that can happen to anyone, but parents who do not warn, who cannot be reached and whose abuses disrupt services. It is a matter of marking the occasion. We will take stock at the end of the year.“, explained Marion Lalane-de-Laubadère, first deputy mayor of Toulouse in charge of schools at the Dispatch from the South.