Friday, October 17
Quite the day. Got to school, did my rounds, then took a medical waiver for a toddler's shots to the office to copy so I could get the immunization report sent to the health department. When I was down there, Miss Renee came to tell me that there were some prospective parents waiting to talk to me. Met with the parents, they have an almost three year old who looks likely to be our first preschooler under the Woodland program that I mentioned yesterday. Nice family, the boy will have some motor and speech difficulties but should fit in ok. As I'm finishing their tour and discussion, I note the mother and grandmother of C.B., one of our preschoolers, waiting to talk to me. They are concerned that C. is being picked on by E.W., another preschooler, who tells C. that he is a "loser" and constantly puts him down. Also he is teaching N.G., another preschooler, to do the same. C. doesn't feel like he has any friends at school and doesn't feel the teachers like him either. I might add that C.'s father died in January and the boy has taken it pretty hard.

I assured the mother/grandmother that if that was happening, it was not acceptable, and I would talk to the teachers to find out what was happening and why. The grandmother wanted me to talk to the other child's parents right away. I told her that I would talk to the teachers and try to determine what was going on before I took that step. Seemed to satisfy her and they left. Oh, also the mom wants to volunteer and I told her I'd check into where she could be most useful. I don't think that this will help her son's situation any, though, and have to figure out how to let her know that.

Next I went out to observe the child in the playground setting. Watched him for about 15 minutes playing both alone and with other children. In my observations, I noted that he looks up to E. and tries to get his approval. He doesn't always get it because E. doesn't always want to play with just C. and C. doesn't like that. I didn't observe any meanness, though, on E.'s part. Will have to observe further next week.

By now my cold has been creeping up on me more and I'm beginning to feel pretty lousy. Think it might be a good idea to go rest for a little while so I go down to the church's youth room and try to take a short nap on their couch. Didn't work, can't shut off the brain when I'm in the building, so finally gave up and went back to my desk. I decided to get the weekly tuition deposit done then go home. Did just that. Filed the receipts, then right before I was to leave the Book lady came with a new display. So had to stay and see at least a little of that! Also during that time a teacher's husband came. The family has two children here and we gave the husband a hard time about the condition of their car. It is appallingly dirty - fast food wrappers, dirty clothes, stuff abounding - don't know where they put their feet. It's really a health hazard and if I wanted to be mean I could probably turn them in for neglect based on their car. I may do that someday if they don't clean up their act - it's not fair to the kids. I told the hubby that there were bags from preschool in the car (the kind that the teachers put clothes in after an accident, and labels them) and he denied that they were from school.

Anyway, I then went home and tried to get some rest. Interrupted by a phone call from our floater teacher, who said I'm sorry that you're sick but I need to get my check. I said that another teacher was supposed to tell you that your check is in your teacher folder. She said oh, then that was about the end of that call. Later I received a call from Miss Renee who said that A.S. from the preschool was being sent home with lice. She asked for the ok to let another teacher stay later to help bag up all the blankets, spare clothes, etc. to send home for washing. I gave the aok and asked Miss Renee to talk to the parents about cleaning out their car (yep, it was the teacher's child who has the messy car) because the lice would live forever in that mess....hopefully she was able to do so in a tactful way. Because if that car is still messy next week I'm not going to be so tactful.

I'm actually writing this on Saturday, feeling better. Gonna try to relax the rest of the weekend, other than church and Sunday school of course, and not worry about things until Monday. That's of course easier said than done, but usually pretty successful until Sunday night anyway.
- posted by Mary (aka RedhedMary) @ 11:59 AM

 
October 16, 2003
A little apprehensive about how the day was going to go as I still hadn't been able to get ahold of Miss Lee the cook. Got to work, tried calling a few more times without success. On the last try, finally decided to pay the 75 cents to have the phone company leave my name and number since there was never any answer and no answering machine. Called Miss Marie and asked her to come in an hour early to cover for Miss Elizabeth so she could cook. So about a half hour after that I got a phone call from Miss Lee's husband - she was "having personal problems" and wouldn't be working for us any longer. Aargh! I hate it when someone quits just like that, leaving us hanging in the wind. Especially when it seems like everything's been going well. Miss Lee had only been with us about six weeks but things were running quite smoothly in the kitchen.

I called the applicant who had been second choice six weeks ago to see if she was still interested and she was. She'll start Monday, I'll have Miss Elizabeth train her.

Miss Elizabeth came down to see if we could switch tomorrow (bologna sandwiches) for today (beef stroganoff) as she didn't really know how to cook beef stroganoff. I said we couldn't because the church needs to share the kitchen with us tomorrow for their fund-raiser cooking. I said that if we just cook up the ground beef, cook the noodles, and add the cream of mushroom soup, that it would be close enough to beef stroganoff to satisfy the kids anyway.

Took several phone calls from parents this morning. One would be bringing her child late because they had to wait for a utility repairman. The other had called yesterday to say that the child was staying home because she was home today. Well today she calls again, talks about all the symptoms he was having yesterday! Why can't parents be honest when their child is sick? I remember having small children and worrying about their care when they were sick and I was supposed to work. But there was no question, the children always came before the job. I think so many of the parents here tend to put the job before the children. Probably not but it sure seems that way sometimes.

Baby B.T. walked about six steps this morning! That was a great accomplishment for him, having just turned one last weekend. Baby C.G., just a few weeks younger, is right behind and almost ready as well. Hard to believe they'll be toddlers in just a few months.

Got an e-mail from the board president. She tried without success to reach "Ben's" parents last night to find out what their status is. Ben (not his real name) is a special needs child whose parents yanked him out of our center when we said that we weren't sure if he was ready to move to the preschool room and are threatening to sue us under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Mind you these same parents have requested in the past that we not refer to Ben as a special needs child and will not acknowledge that he has any developmental delays or other problems except speech delay which they blame on his cleft palate surgery when he was younger (he'll be 2 1/2 in December.) It's a pretty frustrating situation. We love the child and would like to see him succeed. But it's becoming more and more evident that our setting is not the best setting for him to have optimum success. The parent's attitudes make it very frustrating to work with the family as well.

I've been able to get a lot more sorting and filing done. I finally have an empty basket on the right side of my desk! (I still have a full basket on the left side of my desk, though...) Gives me a sense of accomplishment. It's frustrating not to be able to deal with the tremendous amount of paperwork that crosses my desk in an orderly and efficient manner. Hopefully I've made some headway on that these last few days.

Also talked to the principal at Woodland School, where we are getting ready to begin a partnership between us and them for mainstreaming some mildly special-needs kids into our preschool. Set up a meeting with myself and Miss Ann, the preschool lead, at her office next Tuesday. So had to adjust the schedule to cover for Miss Ann. Received a call from the liason for the program as well - a family is coming to see us tomorrow, the probable first child to be admitted to the program. Should be interesting.

This afternoon kids are outside, the weather is tolerably nice but still a little chilly. Some children don't have proper outer clothing, have had to lend out some of our extras. I think that the same five or six children have two thirds of our extra clothing in their drawers and closets at home - know we've seen some children come back in clothing labeled with our name! We had one little boy pretty upset this morning because we had him wear a center coat - he hadn't brought his even though it was in the upper 30's this morning! And we are not really in a low-income area, either, just have (seemingly) more than our share of absent-minded parents.

Everyone's outside now except the cleaning lady who is taking advantage of the quiet to get some vacuuming done. I took advantage of the quiet to post my daily blog.

Looking forward to Friday! (Ok, to Saturday if you want to be realistic about it.)

- posted by Mary (aka RedhedMary) @ 12:24 PM

 
October 15, 2003
Finally! A place to vent, praise, air my frustrations, and everything else. I'm Elizabeth (not my real name), a child care director in Michigan. I've been a child care director for five years, almost quit last spring because of numerous frustrations. Some are getting better, some are getting worse. Never a dull moment around here!

This started out to be a fairly mild day. I'm pretty much caught up on my work with deadlines so decided today would be a day to get caught up on filing, etc. and organizing my desk. (I'm not known too well for my organizing skills, though I DO know where most everything is in my office.) First thing, though, I had to settle a dispute over whether a 12 month old was sent home sick yesterday or not, and why he had symptoms, and should he stay home today. I asked the parent what his temp had been last night (100.3 underarm) and she also said he had had no more symptoms at home last night. Now I know this parent, she tends to minimize symptoms so that she can still go to work. But I also know that the child had immunizations on Monday afternoon which can also cause fevers. So Miss Elizabeth, the toddler teacher, was at the baby room door trying to make sure the child went home, while Miss Rae, the infant teacher, was trying to sort out all the information. Miss Lynn, the afternoon infant teacher who is a preschool teacher in the mornings, said later that he had had a 101 degree temp at the time he went home. But of course she didn't say that in front of me. So I let the child stay with the understanding if he ran a fever today she would have to come get him and abide by the health policy.

Then did my typical walk arounds (checking into every classroom just to see how things were going) then got to work on the sorting and filing. Made some significant progress when Miss Rae came to me (she had been giving the babies an indoor walk) and said that Miss Lee, the cook, wasn't in the kitchen. She should have been there a half hour by then. No call, no show. So I tried calling Miss Lee, no answer, no answering machine, so I had to cook. Spaghetti, peas, apple slices. Fairly simple lunch but challenging to put together in half the usual time.

Came back and did some more sorting for a while after lunch was served, then did the dishes and prepared snack. String cheese & fruit juice. Hope I hear from the cook soon - know her father was ill, hope he didn't take a turn for the worse. (Though that's about the only excuse that will fly for a no show, no call.)

More sorting/filing then the county hearing/vision technician came for screening. Greeted her without telling her that I'd kind of forgotten she was coming. (Smooth move...) then went to print off the class list and gather the first four preschoolers. Watched their screenings - one girl didn't pass the hearing screening, and one boy didn't pass the vision (he kept saying the pictures were aliens when he couldn't see what they were...)

Finally finished that up and I had to play bug detective since the kids found a bug they didn't know about on the playground. It turned out to be an oil beetle, pretty nasty looking thing about an inch long. As I write it's still sitting in my office in a sand bucket.

Oh, also had a parent conversation where their child was being picked on and scratched by another schoolager. The parent talked to the offending child herself this morning. (J.S. being picked on by B.K.)

Now the phone's just rang. A parent checking on their child's ear pain. Went out to check with the teacher, sure enough he's still been complaining so sounds like the parent is going to make an appointment to get it checked. I'm TRYING to get this finished up so that I can close for now and go home for the night!
- posted by Mary (aka RedhedMary) @ 10:49 AM