Spots Opening Right Before Paid Vacation, Does Your Contract Protect You?

[Crazy8]

I have had that happen to me a few times too. The only thing I added to my contract is their free vacation week could not be used after giving their notice (because I had them try that).

Unfortunately if you are on vacation Aug 18th and their last day is Aug 16th - all of which is still 6+ weeks away I don't see how you can "make" them pay for it. But since that week is now going to be an "unpaid" vacation week anyway I would probably schedule myself a nice little paid vacation in mid-July - as long as that works with your notice policy.

[MCC]

I have had that happen to me a few times too. The only thing I added to my contract is their free vacation week could not be used after giving their notice (because I had them try that).

Unfortunately if you are on vacation Aug 18th and their last day is Aug 16th - all of which is still 6+ weeks away I don't see how you can "make" them pay for it. But since that week is now going to be an "unpaid" vacation week anyway I would probably schedule myself a nice little paid vacation in mid-July - as long as that works with your notice policy.

One of the moms exact words was "we have a spot for E started Aug. 25th at the preschool. Since you are on vacation Aug 18-22, her last day will be Aug 16th, and DCD will stay home with her that week." I totally get why they would want to not have to pay for that last week, but it really is not fair to me at all.

I'm thinking about adding in my contract that if term date backs up against a scheduled vacation, you must still pay for the vacation week.

[mim]

I accrue paid time off in each slot. When a child leaves the parent is responsible for paying their child's slot pto.

I take 18 days paid off.

I take 10 days vacation, 8 paid holidays.

I accrue pto at 1.5 days per month. 1.5 x 12 months equals 18 days.

So if it is June and the kid leaves I would have earned six times 1.5 which is 9 days.

I would have taken NEW years, and memorial day off by then. That would leave seven days I have earned but not taken.

So the parents would owe one months notice plus seven paid days.

I have done this system for about 17 years and it STOPPED cold the parents leaving right before my paid time off.

I take ten of the eighteen days off in the six weeks between thanksgiving and new years. I take thanksgiving, day after thanksgiving, Christmas eve, Christmas, five vacation days and New year's.

So I had parents pulling out mid November because they didn't want to pay two of six weeks paid and they had used all their days off. They would wait till it was getting close to deal with it and get care lined up. It was easier and cheaper to find new daycare then to find someone to do free at the Holidays.

Now they have to pay their slots time off whether they are here or not. It stopped the vacation loss and it helped me a ton to retain kids. It also stopped them taking me days.

For part time kids of three days a week... I accrue one day per month. I had a problem with them wanting Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday for the week of thanksgiving making it so I didn't get my paid two days. They would try the same thing if I had any days working the week before I took xmas off depending on the day it hit and the weekafter new years depending on what day it hit.

So they pay twelve days a year and if they want to come Monday Tuesday Wednesday before thanksgiving they can but they pay an additional two days for Thursday Friday.

I

Not sure if I quoted right. Nannyde I am curious how you put this into your contract. How it's worded and if it makes sense to the parent. Also how would this work for clients that start for example in April.
Thanks.

[AmyKidsCo]

Thanks for the feedback.

This situation is a total bummer.

It is, and it's wrong on their part but there's not much we can do about it without looking bad ourselves. Last year I had 3 families leave for 4K - all before my scheduled time off.

The only way I can think of to get around it would be to give 2 just weeks notice of vacation, that way they can't get their 2 weeks notice of termination in. But I don't think it would be worth it to upset all the parents just in case some are planning to leave, kwim?