I require a one month calander notice and I only receive written notice on a Friday. I also accrue 1.5 days of vacation/holiday pay per month. So when a family decides to move on they must provide notice in writing on a Friday, pay for one FULL month, and pay any unused holiday/vacation I have accrued and not taken. This usually results in the family owing about 7-8 hundred dollars to fullfill their contract. Since I developed this notice system it has required parents to PLAN ahead and have funds in reserve to pay off the holiday and vacation time. I don't have clients leaving without having a large sum of money coming in from the day of notification. They can't come in on a Monday and tell me they are leaving me in two weeks leaving me with one Friday check as their balance. They have to start the clock on a Friday and pay 20-23 days of care plus a week plus in accrued time.

This eliminates SO many issues. Parents don't make spur of the moment decisions because they are locked into time they must pay and be nice. They can leave in a huff but they will still owe. I also have time to fill the slot and have money to go into the vacation/holdiay pay fund for the months of service I provided before I took my breaks. This stops them from leaving before I take a week off or before Xmas break where I have eight paid days (xmas eve, xmas, new year, and a week of paid vacation).

When I first started providing care I had parents leave mid november to get out of the two days off in Novemeber and the ten days off in December. Once I required a month notice AND payment of accrued vacation time that stopped completely. I've never had a family leave over the paid time off since. They have to pay whether they leave or not so they aren't enticed to switch child care to avoid the two weeks paid off.

With having the parents pay one week in advance, they would give notice and I would only be owed one week of pay on a two week notice. Very often they didn't feel like the one week was a big deal so I wouldn't get that. Now I have a BIG deal when they give notice so the "little deal that doesn't really matter" isn't an issue.

I don't have parents sign this contract until they have been with me at least three months. Before that they can leave with no notice and a full refund of any unused days. Once they sign the contract they have had my care for enough time to make a decision and honor the contract. I've had one family leave at contract signing time because they were not willing to offer the months notice. I insisted they sign or go because I wanted them to quit negotiating with me about stuff like nap (for an infant!!) and "educational program" for an infant. They didn't like my answers (he will nap with the kids the whole nap every day and we don't provide a curriculum for your eight month old".