Center Politics and Parents

I thought I was working for the best center in the entire universe; my child was placed there even before I found myself working there. But then, I began to notice things. I was seeing too much, and I became caught in a very uncomfortable position. Parents knew that my child attended the center, and some parents had actually enrolled because they believed in my judgement.

As time went by, the very normal and expected high-turnover rate of the childcare industry began to seem not-so-normal; several changes in directors seemed even more abnormal. Soemtimes I thought, well, if I didn't work there, I would think everything was just fine; but is that better? Is it right to reassure parents, when you yourself are concerned? To make things even more difficult, mine is a small town; it isn't uncommon for teachers to change schools. What happens when we hire a new teacher, only to discover that some of our current families knew him or her from another school, and that was the reason they changed schools? It happens, and it can be a very uncomfortable position. In my experience, I have always been able to truthfully say the teacher is receiving special training or is working closely with a particular head teacher. But if that hadn't been the case, I'm not sure what would have been the best response! Then there was the time when we hired a new director, a man, and one of the parents immediately distributed articles on abuse in the childcare setting to all of the parents; I felt so embarrassed for the new director! But he was gracious and let it go, and we decided that the parents needed to decide for themselves if we were providing the best environment for their children. My first instinct was to retaliate, and explain to these people that females are as much, if not more, responsible for abuse than males, according to statistics. But the director seemed to know better, and he let it all blow over, which it did. But then came some more hard times. We were losing teachers for various reasons, and just when we were at our lowest staffing level yet, and were having to ask other centers if we could borrow teachers, we had a theft situation arise. And unfortunately, the person responsible was very vocal about her 'conquest' at a public place where several of our families were present. We really had a dilemma; firing her as we should have right away would have jeopardized our ratios; keeping her on was totally against everything we stood for. Ultimately we all banded together and filled in the empty spots between the few of us, but that didn't help much when parents began to ask questions. In the end, I found that honesty is the best policy, but the nasty little details didn't necessarily have to be part of the honesty. "We are as shocked and disappointed as you are", I would say; "I don't know how she managed to get through all the screenings." I didn't always explain that screenings only work if the person has been caught previously. Then I would go on to reassure them that I appreciated their concern, especially since I too had a child at the center, and that the teacher was no longer a part of our facility. I would offer to have the director speak with them too, but they rarely took me up on it...as a teacher, I seemed to be closer to the day-to-day reality of the center than the director was.

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