I live in a small rural community in the PNW that is (sadly) rapidly growing thanks to a MAJOR corporation. Childcare is severely limited in this community to only 2 in home daycares.

I work in a small community which has 4 daycares but their earliest opening is April 2018 which is when W would be able to go into the daycare at the district I work for (open only to staff).

We put a deposit in ($150) to hold a spot for W for August 2017, we were told a family would be moving and the spot would be ours. The family has since chosen not to move and we were told the next available opening for an infant is November.

Now we received news from the daycare that there will be an opening in October, but starting in June we would have to pay $900 (75% of tuition) to cover the Holding fee even though W can't even start until OCTOBER! She also mentioned that there is another family interested in the spot that she could start in a June. Therefore we'd be paying for double childcare from August-October because I have to go back to work.

Is this typical? Has anyone else been through this? I feel like paying for services that aren't rendered is unethical considering he can't even start. And how a spot randomly opened in October because a new interested family came into the picture.

Ugh-stressed. Anyone?