Miss DayCare
Charlotte, NC
Female, 30
I work in a highly respected, franchised Day Care Provider. I have taught in Toddler classrooms as well as Pre-Kindegarten classrooms. It's a wonderful and rewarding profession and I love every minute of it. I have become friends with many of my parents and they all ask questions which is why I want to open a dialogue here so I can be as honest and open as possible about your most prized posession's early childhood education and what really goes on in the classrooms and hallways!
I have only worked at one that had video surveillance, and quite frankly it doesn't put the teachers at ease that they are there. It was a very "big brother" feeling. That was about 8 years ago and the three places I have worked since then have not had cameras.
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Look at the cleanliness of the facility and the rooms, also when walking around the school peek into other classrooms and not just the ones that your child(ren) will be in. See what the teachers are doing, are they interacting with the kids or just sitting there? Ask to see when the kids play outside and how interactive the instructors are with them. We shouldn't be just sitting on the ground yelling at the kids when someone does something wrong. We should be running around, playing tag, pushing them on a swing, etc....Another big one is if there is "outside" food in the rooms (we aren't supposed to have any outside food or drinks in the room), and you would be surprised at what some teacher leave out....I was coming back from lunch and one of my co workers had a bag of peanuts out during the kids' nap! Also, see if the center has a reference list of parents you can call to see how they like the school. Parents put themselves on it and it's a mix of positive and negative reviews so you can get answers to questions you may not be comfortable asking the director
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There's really not much you can do. There are centers that have a policy that for each minute they are late after closing time, they owe one dollar. Unfortunately, that doesn't deter parents from being late, they just hand you cash when they walk in to pick up their child. If you have a chronically late parent, and you have to stay past close, you just have to grin and bear it and wait for that child to graduate to the next classroom so that parent can become another teacher's problem!
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That was worded wrong, I meant that I had known teacher who have known kids that have been asked to leave the center because of their behavior. Sorry for the mix up!
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Daycare can run anywhere from 250 to 135 a week, it just depends on where you go. Typically infant care is the most expensive and it tapers down from there. It depends on the facility how competitive it is to get in. In Charlotte where I am, the daycare industry is becoming to saturated so "competitiveness" isn't a problem. There are of course centers that I wouldn't recommend and they're even on the higher end of the pricing spectrum so you just have to tour a few centers and see what you feel best. I've found with my friends that have kids on daycare that whatever center they feel comfortable in immediately was the one they chose. When my daughter was born, and I was working in a different place than I am now, I wasn't fond of the infant program there (and it was one of the more expensive ones!), in face I wasn't fond of the facility and was trying to find another place to work. I placed her in the facility I am in now and waited for a position there to open up! I have found that the centers that are 250-300 a week really are all show and no substance.
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I've had kids in my class that were absolutely unbearable and there's only so many timeouts and trips to the director's office that you can give them and they still just don't care. That's when we need the parents to intervene and help us figure out what's going on. Sometimes it's a problem at home and they're simply acting out, a lot of times i've seen it be a behavioral problem that has been undiagnosed and once it's recognized and a treatment plan is in effect the behaviors get exponentially better. I have never seen a child be "kicked out" of a daycare center but I know teachers who have. In those instances they said the child became a physical threat to themselves or the kids/teacher around them. Like I said earlier, there might be some things going on at home that can cause behavioral problems, that it why communication is so important between teachers and their parents. I know it can be difficult to "air your laundry" to your child's teacher, but once we know what's going on we can help with the child's behavior.
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No there's no "hazing." Whoever gets hired knows going in what position they are getting (infant teacher, toddler, pre-school, etc.). If someone is hired for the infant room, they know they're gonna be changing diapers and all that stuff so they know what they're getting into. The turnaround in this industry is pretty high and every teacher in the center I am at has pretty much worked with every age group at the other facilities they have worked in so people who get hired are pretty well rounded.
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