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nannyde 03:02 PM 03-04-2012
Originally Posted by saved4always:
I also never charged for days that the kids were not in care. I have watched alot of teacher's children and last year the large number of snow days killed me financially, especially when added to the large amount of sick days they had already taken off for. There was never a week where I made the expected amount. I finally decided that, as of this year, I would charge full day for snow days (I charge $25 per day) and charge half a day for sick days (gave them 3 free days before this came into play). I didn't want to charge full rate for sick days because I wanted to give them some incentive to NOT try to bring them when they are sick. I gave the new contract to them about 3 weeks or so before it went into effect. My contract says it can be changed in writing at any time with 2 weeks notice. I still do not charge for vacations, holidays or other days they choose not to come as long as they give me notice at least a week in advance (I am fine with making less as long as I have a little notice). Everyone agreed to it. And, of course, no one has been sick more than 3 times since and there have been no snow days this year.
I don't think it's an incentive to keep kids home when they are sick. I've counselled many providers who have this built into their agreements and ended up with parents claiming the child was sick whenever they had free child care.

Your experience of the sickness rate decreasing since you started to charge some fees for it shows you that there is a good chance that they were using the "sick" exception when they really just had a free place to leave the kid.
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