I should of known when I was hired on the spot with no experience that something was fishy with this daycare. Of course I was so excited, I didn't even think of it. I am a single mom with two kids and having a job that would allow me to bring them to work as well as being able to peek in on them during the day made my transistion from being able to stay home with my kids to having to work just a little bit easier.
At first everything seemed wonderful, even though on my first day I was left alone with 12 1-2 year olds (I didn't know about ratios at that point, but that is disgustingly over ratio) and the infants teacher who was taking care of my youngest was constantly rude. I didn't say anything, I was just thrilled to have that job. Then I saw how the kids were moved between rooms 2,3, or even 4 times a day. I still thought it was normal.
It wasn't just the juggling of children or teachers being consistantly over ratio that contributed to the problems of this center. The dishes that these children eat off of aren't sanitized, the heater that is supposed to keep the rinse water above 160 degrees was broken and there were no sanitizing chemicals either (the latter is what they use in fast food resturaunts) I later found out that the water that is used to mop the floors that my baby crawled on was just plain old water. (No wonder he was always sick!)
Yet I just looked the other way, afraid of saying somthing and loosing my job. I was wrote up repeatedly for answering parents questions truthfully. It wasnt until a few months after I started that a teacher finally told me the secret. "Dont ever tell the parents how their kid really was. Just say that they were wonderful, that their day was wonderful, that everything is wonderful." I am ashamed to say that I did take that advice, and I wasn't wrote up again for a few weeks.
I finally had enough when a co worker of mine, who was also the parent of a little girl in the center and I got into a lovely fight about how her daughter dosn't listen to me (I fail to see how exactly it was a fight if we were both trying to make the same point) At that point I was over this job, my hours had been cut (The director messed up and spent too much on payroll) but I still kept goin to work, trying to grin and bear it.
The last straw was how my youngest was being treated after this spat. He was bumped into the toddler 1's room even though he couldn't walk at all about 2 weeks after his first birthday. I was told that this was an effort to encourange him to start walking. (I found out later that state guidelines specify that a child has to be able to walk 3 steps on their own before they leave the infants room)
Well guess who the ones room teacher was. No other than the co-worker that had a problem with me. The worst thing that she did was on the day of that lovely spat that we had, she send my 13 MONTH old baby into the TWO YEAR olds room and took two older one year olds (both of which were at least 18 months old) with her into the infants room to blow bubbles. My son got a gash above his eye and a permanent scar from that day from a child that was bumped out of the ones room for being so violent.
About the same time as the above mentioned spat my baby started coming home repeatedly with daily sheets that proclaim that he hadn't been changed since he woke up from nap time at 2:30.. I wasnt getting off work until 6 pm. When I asked the director about it she said that she would check it out and see if it was an oversight and there were other papers like that or if it was just Caleb's and rushed out of the room. I asked her about it when I showed up for work the next day (the baby stayed home) but she told me that she hadn't checked it out yet. I asked for two more days and got the same response. After the third day I was done.
I gave her my children's two week notices that they would no longer be attending RCDC. I was fired later that day. Good riddance.
A
Greenwood, Indiana
U.S.A.
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