Sounds like you are doing great then.

When you do see her make sure you make it clear again that by signing the contract she is legally AGREEING that she is paying daycare fees based on enrollment, not attendance. That if paying for daycare every week regardless of whether her child attends or not something that she can afford then she should not be signing the contract.

Have you thought about offering drop-in services? Basically it's what she has now but you charge a daily rate instead of a weekly rate and she can pay for the days that he attends only. You can even have her pay for a week block instead of just daily if you want with the condition that she has to call to check and see if you have space, she can't just show up.

The flip side of this is that her spot is not guaranteed so you can keep advertising to replace her and if you get full then she's out of luck. Drop-in care is more expensive of course to make it worth it to you but it's a trade off for not having to pay for weeks she doesn't need daycare.

I do drop-in childcare and it works out for me. I have a separate drop-in contract and while my FT clients pay $160 per week ($32/day) and my drop-in clients pay $40/day. I can fill my empty spots when kids call out and drop-in parents can pay only for the days that they need. Is that something that you thought about offering your DCM (at a higher rate than regular FT or PT clients)?

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