Also it has been a week and you still have no idea how long your child was left alone outside. That is absolutely ridiculous.
This.
OP, I've been biting my tongue because I hate to victim blame, but you are being entirely too breezy/forgiving about this. Please stop to think that your TWO YEAR OLD was left outside alone for GOD KNOWS HOW LONG and no one noticed. No one! It took your DH to figure it out! And then you were essentially ignored for a week!
I hope all the parents at the daycare are being notified. If this happened to ANY child at my daycare I'd be pulling my kid immediately.
I keep coming into this post, and leaving again. A previous poster said this wasn't an instance where the police should be involved. I fully disagree. That's the sort of motivation this center needs to get their asses in gear. I'm appalled by the entire situation.
This happened in my hometown when I was in high school. A toddler was left outside on a fenced in playground and a passerby saw them alone. The police arrived, it was on the local news, and the Montessori school closed down for a few months before reopening with new ownership.
Every single parent at this center NEEDS to know what happened.
I would want to leave the center as well. I cannot imagine enjoying having to deal with them going forward at all and your LO is just 2. She likely has 3 more years at a daycare before school I imagine. That would be a long 3 years of my wondering if things were being handled properly.
Also it has been a week and you still have no idea how long your child was left alone outside. That is absolutely ridiculous.
This.
OP, I've been biting my tongue because I hate to victim blame, but you are being entirely too breezy/forgiving about this. Please stop to think that your TWO YEAR OLD was left outside alone for GOD KNOWS HOW LONG and no one noticed. No one! It took your DH to figure it out! And then you were essentially ignored for a week!
I hope all the parents at the daycare are being notified. If this happened to ANY child at my daycare I'd be pulling my kid immediately.
I agree.
OP, you're focusing on the details (how many teachers were there, times, etc) but it really doesn't matter much. The fact is, the center is making NO EFFORT to resolve this issue. You are pursuing them. They should have called YOU, planned a meeting, and had new policies in place within 24 hours. You should not have to convince your daycare center that they need a better system for not losing children.
I know you really like her teachers and she's happy there, but you cannot trust the administration to run a safe daycare. At any given point, you'd be relying on the judgement of all teachers present, and the center is making no effort to ensure consistency and safety. Not only that, but without good communication and recognition of responsibility, you have no idea what might have happened, or will happen, with other kids. Maybe this wasn't the first time it happened? Maybe something happens in the future with another child, but you'll never be notified because they're all "La-ti-da no biggie" about things. The administration sets the tone for any business, and even if there are some great teachers, this is a very poorly run daycare.
Something else to consider - if licensing gets involved and closes or temporarily suspends their license, you will be scrambling for care with zero notice. Even if you're not set on leaving, you need to have back-ups ready to go.
I'm just dumbfounded at how laid back you are on this. I would've been on burn it down immediately and contacted anyone I could think of about it when they didn't have answers for me withing 24 hours. This is insane.
Something else to consider - if licensing gets involved and closes or temporarily suspends their license, you will be scrambling for care with zero notice. Even if you're not set on leaving, you need to have back-ups ready to go.
This is a very good point. OP, I really would start getting on some lists elsewhere, like, yesterday. You don't want to be stuck with no options at all. I'm really angry on your behalf and hope you get something sorted out soon.
Long story short, I was not happy with our meeting today, and will be looking at other daycares. There are quite a few nearby, and worst case scenario, dh's parents live in the town next to us, I'm sure mil wouldn't mind watching dd until we got sorted.
Thank you all again for your input, it's so helpful to hear other points and suggestions that I would not have thought of on my own.
I have told 2 of our friends who go there, one is definitely staying as her son is in the oldest class and his teacher is amazing (no guarantee he would still be there by the time dd got to that class) and the other is considering moving, hopefully with us. I know it's silly, but the little girl is like dd's bff.
I did tell C that I want every parent to get an email of what exactly happened, and what they are doing to fix it, and if she doesn't I will stand at the door and tell everyone myself.
I know when this happened at our daycare, we were not notified...I heard through the rumor mill. Just a notice that teachers 1 and 2 had left, effective immediately.
We did receive that notice the day after it happened, however!
OP, I've been biting my tongue because I hate to victim blame, but you are being entirely too breezy/forgiving about this. Please stop to think that your TWO YEAR OLD was left outside alone for GOD KNOWS HOW LONG and no one noticed. No one! It took your DH to figure it out! And then you were essentially ignored for a week!
I hope all the parents at the daycare are being notified. If this happened to ANY child at my daycare I'd be pulling my kid immediately.
I keep coming into this post, and leaving again. A previous poster said this wasn't an instance where the police should be involved. I fully disagree. That's the sort of motivation this center needs to get their asses in gear. I'm appalled by the entire situation.
This happened in my hometown when I was in high school. A toddler was left outside on a fenced in playground and a passerby saw them alone. The police arrived, it was on the local news, and the Montessori school closed down for a few months before reopening with new ownership.
Every single parent at this center NEEDS to know what happened.
I'm sorry but the police will not intervene in something like this. I'm not minimizing what happened. it is what it is and without an act of malfeasance resulting in physical harm to a child by a specific person, it's not going to be a criminal matter.
Also, can we not turn this into a post where we are blaming OP for not doing what we think she should do? She feels badly enough. She needs to work. She can't just snap her fingers and have a new better daycare available at her fingertips.
The police would just hotline it, which was already done. So it would have been redundant if they were notified after the fact.
the only time police get involved with daycare stuff here is if a child is found off the daycare property by a passerby and calls it in, or if something catastrophic happens, like a child escaping and getting hit by a car, which has happened twice here in the last year :*( Both in home daycares.
I would have called the police if I thought it would do anything further, but the abuse hotline and the woman from IAIU said they would just do a report and give to them.
2 things that pushed me further in the meeting were that 1, I found out the new teacher who left her outside was on her 3rd day at the daycare. I can't believe they let someone with no supervision be in charge of 5 toddlers at the end of the day. I don't care how much previous experience she had, clearly 3 days wasn't enough, because she skipped 2 head counts and left my kid outside. 2, apparently they weren't even supposed to be outside at that time, and that just about every day classes are out there beyond schedule. So no one is following what they're supposed to do. I couldn't believe it, and asked what ELSE were they doing that they shouldn't be, and why should I believe her about anything?
Post by starryfish on Sept 30, 2017 16:45:36 GMT -5
I'm sorry OP. I would call other daycare places asap and let them know what happened and see if they can get your DD in asap. Plus I would also tell your story on a local FB moms group so others that go there are aware.
jeaniebueller I'm not blaming the OP, but am very strong in my stance that the other parents need to know what happened. If the DC isn't sharing that information yet, and the situation is still unresolved, something needs to happen.