Being late to pick up your child from school could be costly from the start of the school year.
Starting this Monday, September 2, it’s back to school. These are therefore the last hours to finish preparations such as buying all the equipment. Some regulations have also changed for the new school year. Parents will have to be particularly organized, as several cities have decided to crack down on those who pick up their child late from school or daycare. In Toulouse, for example, the city hall has decided to impose a new rule on them at the start of the school year and it may not please everyone.
She has, in fact, announced that parents will really have to come and pick up their children on time at the Claé (Leisure Centres associated with the School), while to date 6,000 to 8,000 late arrivals are recorded per year. The latter can be picked up between 4:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. If parents do not respect this time slot, they will be fined.
“Any delay recorded in the evening may result in the invoicing of a fixed fee of 30 euros corresponding to the salary cost of the two animators who are forced to stay,” stated the note sent to parents. This measure “aims to remind people of the importance of punctuality.” Parents will first be notified by a warning letter.
The letter also states that such measures have already been taken in other establishments, notably in Strasbourg, Lille, Bordeaux and Marseille. Such a measure has, in any case, been applied in Moreuil in the Somme with penalties of five euros for five minutes late, ten for thirty minutes and fifty beyond an hour and this is also the case in other locations even if the rates vary.
Marion Lalane-de Laubadère, first deputy mayor in charge of education, explains that it is not a question of sanctioning parents who are exceptionally five minutes late but rather those “who are late on a regular basis, without any particular reason”, as she specified to Toulouse News. According to her, this concerns “a few hundred parents”. “The parents we are talking about, we can’t even reach them in the event of a delay. And it can sometimes be up to an hour and a half late”, explained the elected official. Normally, in such a situation, the child should be taken to the police station, but it “‘“It’s not his fault, it’s not his fault, and in reality, it’s very complicated for an officer to take a child to the police.”