A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Banter Hall Daycare Issues!!!!!!

Ok......Tristen goes to a daycare center here in town. They have 4 full time staff members and a couple part time people. I picked Tristen up yesterday at the end of the day and the director informed me that herself and the entire staff quit and their last day will be tomorrow! Can they do this?? This is totally insane! I am scrambling around trying to find daycare. They gave me a 2 day notice! I have been trying to call the owner of the facility but have yet to get a hold of him. I think there should be some kind of compensation. What do they expect the parents of 20 kids to do without daycare?!? We live in a small town so there is not a whole lot of options for us. I have found two daycares with openings and I am meeting with them on Friday. But, as of the end of the day tomorrow, I have NO daycare!!!

Wow, that is awful. Don't know the regulations in your area. Is it privately run?

It is privately run but is licensed by the State. I guess I don't really know the regulations on it either but it is so frustrating!

They didn't give you any reason why?

That is terrible! I doubt that the owner could fire everyone and not give parents notice, but I think that employees could quit whenever they want too and if they all "happen" to quit at once, well, too bad for the owner. I wonder what happened to make them all quit.

That's just it, you need so many workers per child. No workers equals no children. Forcing the closure until they can find other workers. If they decide to do so.

Oh, Jessica, this IS upsetting news! I hope you can make progress on sorting it all out quickly. You are certainly in my thoughts and prayers.

Merme

The employees just told me that they no longer wanted to work for the owner. That is the only reason they gave. I think it is really crappy on the employee's part not to give us more notice than they did.

I spoke with the owner and he said that they have a couple new employees hired already but I am worried about their qualifications. Many families have already quit because of it and the former director said that there are 4 families that have not given direct answers about what they are going to do including myself. The problem that I have with this is that I don't know any of the people they have hired and will not even get to meet them until Friday and then Tristen would go back to daycare Monday. I am not comfortable with that! I feel like they have hired just anyone that they can find whether they are qualified for the position or not because they are obviously desperate. I am so upset about all this! I could just cry!!!

Thank you Merme!

Jessica, I really feel for you in this position!! I'd be frantic. You said...( I feel like they have hired just anyone ).... will you be asking about this on Friday, to find out if they are qualified people? I think I would be demanding some proof, and would feel entitled to it!
Certainly hope everything has been resolved by Monday!
Praying for you.

Thank you Shirley! Tristen will not be going to daycare on Friday but I did tell them that I will be coming up there on Friday to meet with them. I am still going to keep my other appts. for Friday to see what my options are.

that is the best plan of action. it is so hard to find and keep quality daycare. part of it is because most daycare workers do not make any more money than entry level food service workers. i'll be praying for you

Jessica,
I used to work at a daycare here in PA. Being licensed by the state just means that the state comes into the center once a year and does an inspection. If there are things that need to be fixed, then there is a list given to the owner/director and the center is given a deadline for when those things have to be fixed. Then the state comes back in to recheck the things that have been corrected and after that, the center gets it's license for the next 12 months. I'm pretty sure that every state requires childcare employees to have background checks, but I'm not completely 100% sure about that. I did find a great website for you...
National Resource Center for Health and Safety You said Tristin goes to a center, so you'd want to click on the "liensing of daycare facilities" link...the first one in the box. The NRC has done a great job at breaking down the requirements for specific jobs that are in the daycare setting.


WARNING: THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH CONTAINS MY TWO CENTS AND ONLY MY TWO CENTS!!!
I did want to give you some advice that I have learned just from experience. If every single staff member in the center that Tristin is going to has quit without giving adequate notice...and you've been going there for a while and everything seemed A-OK......I would run away as fast as I could. This is not a good sign of a good owner or director (which ever is in charge of the day to day runnings of the center). In all honesty, that center will most likely be closed withing the 12 months and if you stay to try to give them a chance, then when the place does close (and they are not required to give parents notice, by the way), then you'll be stuck trying to find a spot for Tristin somewhere that has already taken other children from the center and may be full. Personally, I think you should talk to the parents of other children that are in Tristen's room (if you happen to know their phone numbers and such) and ask them about the center that they have gone to instead of the center that you are currently at. Even though they have only been there a couple of days, they should have a good or bad feeling about the place. If Tristen is somewhere where 1 or 2 of his friends from daycare are at, then he should adjust just fine in the next couple of weeks (I am just now realizing that I have no clue as to how old Tristen is!!). So, there is my two cents......coming from working at a daycare that is slowly killing itself.

Yes, that would worry me too. Why did the staff all quit at once? Do you really want your child in such an obviously unhappy place? A licensed day care here in Cal. HAS to have qualified teachers and aides. Background checks and other things included.
Good luck!

jessica
hope you find out what happend and whats gonna happen, sounds like the employees got tierd of their employer.

i hpe you can keep him there if thats what you want, but if not like jen said maybe you could find out from the other parents were they might be takin their kids to. it would be easier for tristen if there were other kids he was familiar with in a new daycare.
hopin all works out for you and tristen.

Thanks to all of you for your great advice!

I asked the employees, the director and the owner why all of them quit. The director also quit. Nobody is giving us a straight answer. They say that they do not like the owner's new wife but I think there has to be more to the story because how many people would quit their job last minute like that without having something else lined up. I do not plan to continue taking him to that daycare. I have two other options to look at tomorrow. Sure hope that works out!

Jenn.....you mentioned asking other parents where they are taking their kids now and see if I can get him in there. The problem is that we live in a town of about 3,000 people with 19 licensed daycares here. I have called all 19 of them and only a few have openings. One I have already heard bad things about so I scratched that off the list. And I am left with these other two. All of the other parent's are in the same boat as I am and have no idea what they are going to do. When you have a center with 20 kids basically close on us it is hard to find daycare for all 20 of those kids! This center was the only center in our town. I have been going there for about 9 months. The center has been open for not quite 2 years and most of the families have been there that whole time. We never had any indication that something might have been wrong or going on.

I do know that every employee at a daycare has to have a background check.

Well, thanks again for all your advice and keep us in your prayers. Hopefully tomorrow night goes well and we have a good quality daycare to go to on Monday.

Oh yeah Jenn, Tristen is 5!

You know Tonya...I have thought about it but I just don't think I could do it. My nerves wouldn't cope either and I can just imagine what my house would look like!

Holy cr@p, I can tell you from experience. Back away from the thought Jessica, in fact...run.

The kids tore apart my house here. I was going nuts at the last, I had to give up Day caring.

I have heard more than one person say that their house got tore apart from daycare. I don't think I could do it anyways. I would probably go nuts!!!

James gets frustrated with the amount of toys Tristen has. I can't imagine if I did daycare and had all those toys on top of Tristen's. He would probably move out!

Nope Plus, if I was going to do that I should have done it when Tristen was little. Not when he will be starting Kindergarten.

I went to a couple daycares Friday night to see if we liked them or not! Well, we found one that we think Tristen will like and he started today! He did really good when I dropped him off. Wasn't really sure how he would be at first because he is pretty shy at first and gets a little teary eyed when I leave but he did wonderful! He saw that she had tractors and he pulled those out right away and started playing! When I left he just said "bye mom" and that was it. The lady called me right before lunch and said that Tristen was doing great. She said that he was smiling all morning!

It is! I am so happy that he is doing well with it! I can't wait to pick him up to see what he has to say about it!

I'm so glad you found somewhere you like on such short notice, and very glad that Tristen seems to like it.
Keep us posted on his reaction when you pick him up!!

So glad all went well today! A teacher calling to let you know all is fine like yours did is ALWAYS a good sign!

Tristen did very well at daycare yesterday! I asked him on the way home how he liked it and he told me he liked it better than his old daycare! I was kinda surprised he said that since it was his first day there but then he told me that he liked it better because she has tractors!

When I picked him up she said she had a question for me....she said at lunchtime he told her that I said he only has to drink chocolate milk and she was giving him white milk. I told her that he obviously likes chocolate better as most kids do but he does drink white milk and that I would talk to him. So when I brought it up to him he said...I know mom, I will drink it all tomorrow. He was trying to pull a good one over on her!

Jessica, you can't blame him for trying

Nope I guess I can't! I too actually thought it was funny he did that but couldn't let him know that! He told me that he drank all his milk there yesterday!