After reading on here that many of you ask to be paid for Christmas week and 9th we r days you take off, I have been wondering how it works out with families who are new.
If the Smith family started in October, they are paying for maybe 3 or 4 days vacation for the provider, while the Jones family, who started in March and left in October, had to pay for hardly any days off. Do you find a way to make it more fair, or is that just the way it is ? Thanks for helping me understand how this works.

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Sorry, that should read Christmas week and OTHER days off.

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Personally, if the jones family leaves in march it doesn't matter. All of my families pay for 52 weeks a year. Regardless of illness or attendance or vacation. Of course, I only take four days off a year. But next year I'm going to add more days.

The only way to make it fair is to give them all the same rules. If they leave, why worry about what days they did or didn't get or pay for really.

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I had a family start in October and they left a week into December because they could no longer afford care (moms a stay at home) I suspect they are going to suddenly have the money again in January or February and ask if they can re-enroll. Doing it this way means they have not had to pay a lot of my paid days off. The majority of my other paid days are in the summer and they don't need summer care so really they will have not had to pay for hardly any of my paid days off. I've had others do this in the past. Sometimes I've already filled the spot and sometimes I let them come back. Is a situation like I explained the reason you asked? I've brainstormed and can't think of how to prevent it.

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I don't close for a week so I can't say. I also don't take days off either. So asking for pay every week because I am here, I hardly think is wrong. If they come, don't come, stay, leave......it all pans out in the end.

Cradle has it right though. You can't predict who uses days and who leaves, etc.

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I charge by the month. I multiply the weekly tuition amount by 52 weeks and then subtract 2 weeks from that (my two weeks unpaid vacation) and then divide that amount by 12 months. So my monthly tuition is $525 per month no matter what holidays/vacations fall in that month. I typically only have long term full time clients so I have never had a problem with keeping families during vacation months. I also typically only have new enrollments in August because kids are leaving for KG.

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This is how I do it also. Don't ever have complaints from my families, which are typically long term clients also. I often take a vacation in September (my anniversary) and I had a few a new clients enroll in August. I will go ahead and give a reduced rate for that client just that once. Not because they complain but makes me feel better.

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My contract/policy explains the 52 week pay for spot, not attendance. Then I list the professional/personal/vacation/holiday time that my program will be closed...this is the same for all families regardless of when they are enrolled. If I enrolled a child Dec. 18th, they would know up front they owed Dec. 20 thru Jan. 2 when I am closed....I am thorough in my interview process....DCP all pay a week in advance....I love it because it eases so much stress and chaos....In the beginning it was difficult, but now it works.....

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This is what you do.... if you take 2 weeks paid vacation and lets say you charge 100 per week. $200 divided by 50 weeks is $4 so you add that to the weekly fee and bank it.. then they week you close you have already collected it and they do not have to pay. and if they left they already paid also.

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I take 5 days paid vacation a year, plus Major Holidays are paid. (4th of July, New Years, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Day After Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas)

So that's a total of 13 days paid time off per year. If they Holidays fall on a weekend I don't take an extra day off, even though it's tempting to.

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I think I get what you're saying, that certain families will pay less, while others pay more if they enroll/leave after or before paid days off, right?

You could do as a pp does and charge a slightly higher daily or weekly rate, then set that money aside and take 'unpaid' vacation days. I will be doing this when I raise rates (by $1/day) and add in 3 unpaid days off per year in my 2014 contracts.

I think it evens out, and I have not had a client leave over it yet. I enrolled a family two weeks ago, and they just paid for 4 days off. I also enrolled them at the 2014 rates. They knew this upon enrollment, and still signed on.

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To be fair I start my paid holidays after 90 days enrollment. This way I feel as though I earn them.

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