Set Amount of Unpaid Sick Days?

[CrazyEight]

I have a number of sick days built into my contract, which I am thinking of reducing a bit. I know many of you don't offer any unpaid sick days, but for those that do, how many do you offer and what is your policy?

Currently I offer 7 unpaid sick days per year, with days 8-14 (a second week's worth) at half-rates. Any sick days after that is full rate, because, heck, I can only lose so much pay.

Many providers here offer unlimited unpaid sick days and have very lax cancellation policies; it is definitely more of a "babysitter" mentality, so I don't want to completely take out my policy, as I have to remain somewhat competitive.

I am thinking of reducing my sick days offered from 7 to 5, which is still a full week of actual daycare days, and then consequently changing it to days 6-10, a second week of daycare days, at half rates, then after day 10 back up to full rates.

Sound reasonable? I would only change this for new families coming in, of course.

[Busy ECE mommy]

I don't offer children's sick days unpaid at all. They pay full day rates for all of their days, whether they are here or not. I can't afford to have unpaid days. They pay for the spot. If it were me, I'd reduce the unpaid days down to 2 or 3 per year. I think 5-7 days is far too generous. If you added up all of those days and multiplied it by 5 children, you would lose equivalent to a month's worth of full time fees for one child. Just my 2 cents...

[Momof4]

My clients pay 49 weeks per year, full fees no matter what happens. I don't want to list snow days, sick days, etc. so I make it simple. My paid closed days are clearly listed so they can mark their calendars for the year and I let them know at the beginning of the year which 3 weeks I'll be taking for my unpaid vacations so they can plan those also.

In my first year I offered unpaid vacation days to clients but that was just insane. I had a difficult time budgeting and keeping track of everyone's days, so I changed it to payments all the time.

[5 Little Monkeys]

I don't offer unpaid sick days but I do offer a cheaper rate ($10 less a day) for vacation time or planned days away (for them, my vacation is unpaid)

I do it this way because I get paid in advance and if I offered unpaid sick days, I would be constantly refunding money and I don't want to do that.

If you like your method though, I think reducing the amount of days is a good idea!

[cfred]

I offer 5 per year. That's a standard work week. That's it. When I used to do part time enrollments as well, I offered 1 sick day for every day/week of enrollment.