My guess is because in those situations the employees of that daycare are paid for 2 hours or whatever the time differential is between normal open and school start. Opening at the normal time and then running until the new school start time after the delay would be double that.
I'd be more than willing to pay extra in these situations, and I'd be the staff wouldn't mind making time and a half to keep the normal schedule.
Also with the daycare opening two hours late is also a policy issue. Much easier to have a standard policy then to take each occurrence separately. It should be laid out in your handbook.
Say the delay was due to snow...is the parking lot cleared yet at 6:30? What about the walk ways? Okay what if it was at one school but not another.
I hate to be blunt but tjink big picture. They have been doing this a lot longer than you have been a parent.
I appreciate the big picture comment, and I do try to take that into account. I've never complained about them starting late or canceling due to snow/ice and bad road conditions. But today they delayed because of cold weather. Negative 30 temp didn't stop me from getting to work in time, so it shouldn't stop a daycare worker either. Again, I get it for the school system and the school buses, but I don't get why this before school thing gets delayed too. I'm sure it's easiest to just have a blanket policy that covers everything, but it can't be that hard to write in something extra that says you get charged $20 more a day when school is delayed but before care isn't.
Luckily my wife is now is a salaried position so she doesn't have a firm start time and we make this work, but it's still rough and I feel for those that don't have the flexibility we that we have.