Chain daycare centers, few looks, parents don't care?

 

I wrote a blog concerning the chain daycare center, I actually worked for one and know first hand what happens behind those walls.  I have gotten few looks either because parents are stuck there, parents want 'any port in a storm' regardless of how shabby that port is, or they simply do not care.

I have a problem with complacency in America.  I tell you that your child is probably not safe and yet you don't seem to get it.  Why is this?  Whatever the reasons, I'm continuing with my look behind chain daycare walls.

Some problems I encountered with 'teachers', I use that term loosely, were: One day a 'teacher' showed up wearing sheer white pants, minus underwear.  Her excuse?  "I didn't have a chance to do laundry yet."  Um, OK.  Underpants are light, can't wash some out in a bathroom sink and dry them over night?  Wow, rocket science solved.  I sent her ass home, Not exactly the scenery her class of 4 and 5 year old kids need to be staring at all day.  Of course that 'teacher' had taken to flirting with a good looking dad each day.  I told her to snag dates on her own time, not on my time.  Of course, she called the overseer and complained I was being 'unfair.'

Another day, one of my 'teachers' didn't like her time slot for her lunch break.  They were supposed to take turns on lunch breaks each day so all classes were covered when one was out to lunch.  Her big, bad boyfriend decided to enter our lobby and at the top of his voice says: "Well why don't you tell that Bitch you want to leave now for lunch?  If you don't tell her, I will."  I went to the lobby and told him to leave, wait outside or I was calling the cops if he started something with me.  Nice guy, I'd sure want him as my baby daddy.  LOL  NOT!

Another incident was when I caught a 'teacher' yanking on a little kid's arm to drag him back to circle and story time.  I called her to my office and said I ever wanted to see that again and I sent her home and wrote her up.  What happened?  I got written up for being too harsh.  Well, Kindercare, get your ass sued and see how ya like it then!

When I took the job, our kitchen person was there early to do food prep and let the parents and kids in the door, with a helper each day, the 'teachers' took turns coming early and leaving early (heaven forbid Kindercare paid anyone over time) to help with the kids.  Well, the kitchen person decided to whine about helping let kids in early.  I got to work by 7:30 daily, so they both were there without me for possibly one hour each day max.  Well, kitchen loser quit, so now I had to put in over 12 hours daily to cook food and be there early with another person to let kids and parents in.  Mind you, that kitchen person had been always doing that morning routine for years. New director, and she freaked, apparently.

The former director, come to find out, was buddy, buddy with traveling overseer.  I mean they went to each other's houses, had cookouts, went vacationing together, etc.  Former director decided she wanted to take te free trip to Vegas her husband had earned selling cars.  She had used up all her vacation, sick days and personal time.  She decided to 'resign' to go to Vegas.  When she returned she took to visiting the daycare center. If you resigned, what in hell was she doing there twice a week?  So eventually, the overseer found reasons to let me go so former director could have her job back.  Planned all along?  Probably.

I would go to overseer with parent complaints only to be told: "Those people always complain.  You know how single, poor parents are."  I said, frankly, no I guess I didn't know how they are.  I used to be one, before and during college.

I had a weeks worth of training from former director before she split for Vegas.  I will never forget one particular incident during training.  She was showing me something on the computer (how to save Kindercare money of course) when a dad came in to get his kids.  Apparently he owed some money, one week I think, and former director went out and started to yell at him over money.  I mean she Yelled!  Next thing I know she said: "You drunken piece of shit, you better pay up or your damned kids are out of here."  Just the kind of language I would want my kids in daycare to hear.  

The daycare would stoop to serving 2% milk to growing babies, not good, they need whole milk.  But saying so got me in trouble.  I know of a friend of mine who noticed her small child was being served 2% instead of whole and she went to the director of her daycare too. I'm glad her daycare listened.  Not so of mine.

So drop in, unannounced, see how the classes are run and pay attention.

 

 

 

Kindercare Learning Center, I certainly learned a lot

 

As a once daycare director, I learned that chain, corporate run, daycare places are much like nursing homes, only the clients are younger.  So corporate run places go from one end of the age spectrum to the other, in their ways of thinking.  That way of thinking being: We see a way to make money, we can align ourselves with state and local government to pay us big monies, we need to please our board members, the hell with pleasing the paying customer and we can actually abuse families, kids and elderly people and pretty much get away with it.

Corporate daycare has the advantage over poor, working, single moms.  For that matter, they have the advantage over their underpaid workers they like to call 'Teachers."  I. for one, would never, ever work for another one on planet Earth.

Let's start with your kids.  Corporate daycare is always, always, always concerned first and foremost, with money.  As a director my big jobs were: Marketing to keep the daycare full and watching those moms every morning like a damned hawk as they swiped their cards into a machine designed to be sure the corporation got their payments in a timely fashion.  Because, lord knows, poor single moms are stupid (at least to corporate America anyway.)  My other big job would be to sit for hours on that damned computer, looking at finances, I was supposed to give tongue lashings to self-paying parents if they were behind in their bills.  Funny thing about the daycare, I could never let a child go from daycare if they were terrorizing other kids, but I was expected to let them go if mom or dad was behind in their payments.  Money is more important to them than your kid is.  

 This is what they Want you to believe!

Each time the district manager (I called her a traveling 

overseer because she was a taskmaster) came to my daycare, the conversation was most always money.  Be it changes in their computer program, teaching me how to improve getting money from agencies, or making sure I tallied up all profits correctly each day.

Let's discuss the 'teachers' of corporate daycare.  Do they have training in early childhood or early education?  Mostly, no, I had just one 'teacher' with that training.  The rest only had a GED and with the whopping $7.00 per hour pay and no benefits, we didn't exactly attract those with bigger educations or training.  But, I was told by a corporate tool: "Well these women knew what this job paid when they decided to work here."  That was no real excuse to me for not paying better.  

At that whopping $7.00 an hour, I was also expected to send teachers home early so as not to have to pay them too much, and I was supposed to bust teachers down to part time at the corporation's will.  Needless to say, teachers groused at me for that stuff.  Not my decision, but it didn't matter.  As a director, I was also supposed to save money by picking up slack in classrooms so I could send the hourly workers home early each day.  I was salaried so I could put in 12 to 16 hour days and cost the corporation no more money.

 Working for a corporation, I was director in name only.  I had no authority to fire anyone, even if they swung from the chandeliers, unless, of course, a parent accused them of inappropriate behavior (touching a kid inappropriately.)  I learned just how an angry parent can all but ruin a teachers career by false accusations too.  One parent didn't like 'fat' people so she targeted one of my teachers because she felt the teacher was too fat to care for her kid.  I told you it could be a nightmare job.

When I first started as the director, I was expected to attend a damned seminar in Indianapolis for an entire four days.  I mistakenly thought it was designed to teach us newbies how to better run a daycare.  Oh, not so!  It was designed to show us how to market so we could bring in more money for corporation CEO and the like.  We had to do stupid crap like chant and cheer, much like the bullshit WalMart pulls to pump up our enthusiasm. Doesn't work, at least not for me anyway.  One of the worst seminars I ever went to.  

Now while I was gone I was told my associates could run the daycare just fine.  Funny thing about that, if corporate said so, it was gospel.  One day I took an hour and a half lunch to get away from the daycare and all the piddly interruptions from workers, so I could concentrate on a new computer program and how to run it to make money, attending that lunch with a corporate person.  Well the overseer decided it was 'just too much' as my workers had called her and said I wasn't back in the usual hour, even though my cell was on if they needed me.  Geesh!!!!!!

I had teachers refusing to clean their rooms at the end of their shifts because they were not paid enough.  I had many problems with how they cared for the kids in their charge too, from bad pay to lack of good training, the problems persisted.  I got to hear the complaints from parents and all complaints fell on corporate deaf ears.  If I had meetings with staff to address issues, they called the district manager to complain about me, they didn't like having a new director who expected them to do their jobs.  Many teachers would call in, at the last freakin minute, to say they could not make it to work that day.  I had a bus driver, scheduled to work a few hours each morning to drive school kids to their schools, never show up and had her phone turned off when you tried to call.  I was not allowed to write her up nor let her go for not doing her job either.

 That same bus driver bitched to me that she: "Was part time, retired, could not put in too many hours because it cut into her Social Security payments."  I eventually hired a full time driver, to then be bitched at by the part time, retired one, accusing me of trying to cut her hours.  Gawd, make up my damned mind!!

I got bitched at for not lying to parents for corporate screw ups, for teacher screw ups and what have you.  I refused to treat single moms like crap simply because they were poor.

I have to say, I could not leave that job fast enough.  So if you choose daycare, think long and hard about chain, corporate run ones.  I know they offer the best advantage because they can take vouchers and such, but you do not get what you pay for.  The corporate ones take Full advantage of their alliances with local and state government to pull in money.  I do know it makes single moms stand between a rock and a hard place.