The new daycare, take two

Jack celebrated his last day at the new daycare, heretofore known as the evil daycare, on Friday.  Jack didn't really actually celebrate it, but I did and David did.

Here are some things we didn't like about it:

• Jack was 20 1/2 months when he started there, but they put him in the room with the 2 to 3 year olds. The logic behind that was that he would be moving to that room in a few months anyway so why transition him twice.  While this made sense intellectually, for Jack this was very difficult.  He came from an infant room that went from 6 weeks to 18 months. (They hadn't transitioned him there yet because of over-crowdedness in the toddler room and then because we were about to move.)
• Because he was younger he was a little overrun by the rest of the class. When we would arrive in the morning the kids would all be running around. No one would say hi to Jack.  And during that second week we were there, when David or I got up to leave Jack would start to scream in fear.
• The lead teacher for the room wasn't very nice. She acted as though anything out of her norm was an enormous inconvenience. On our first day there when my mother came with me, she told my mother all about the schedule (while I was across the room with Jack) and when I asked her what the schedule was she looked at me blankly, as if she had no idea what I was talking about.  Last week Jack came home with a huge scratch across his cheek and a note in his lunch box that said "Jack pushed a child who was on the car toy and the child scratched Jack. Please trim Jack's nails."
• No one paid any special attention to Jack during his first days there. There was another child, Jeremy I think, who was Jack's age and also started the same day Jack did.  He was crying/whining during the hour I was there the first day and no one did anything for him.  They ignored him completely.  The poor thing was all alone there on his first day and they ignored his calls of distress. The next day the assistant teacher said "Jack's not like him. That other kid is just a whiner."  I was stunned.
• By the Thursday of the first week I still hadn't met the director/owner.  One of the teachers told that the director/owner worked from 10 am til 3 pm because she had children.  That same day one of the "teachers" at the school phoned me, did not identify herself by name (none of them every did when they called, or picked up the phone), and said that the director said I had to come there immediately to sign some papers. Forget that I was working. Forget that I had the cable guy and the phone guy there that morning. She demanded I drop what I was doing and get down there on her whim. 
• One day when I picked Jack up, his face lit up as usual to see me.  One of the afternoon teachers said something like: Oh, it's good to see he can smile. 

It made me sick to leave him there day after day while I waited for the new place to be able to take us.

I REALLY wanted to like this place, but so many little things made me hate it.  And the lack of respect from the director and the teachers for both parents and children was simply appalling.

Today we took Jack to the new place.  David spent some time there with him in the morning. By the time David left, Jack was laughing and playing with the other kids, who were all his age.  He is in the 18 to 24 month room at his new place.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE.  The new new daycare is so so so much better. It makes me wonder about the parents and kids who stay at the evil daycare. Do they not know that there are better places out there?

Comments

[magpie]

That comment from the teacher "Oh, it's good to see he can smile" is AWFUL. So glad you found a better place.

[Aurelia]

Just listening to this story makes me feel sad...we had a fabulous daycare, but I know other people who didn't, and they often asked me how I could leave my kid in daycare.

Now I know why...maybe they really thought that crap was all there was out there. I'm glad he's in a good one.