I Quit!!!!!!

[lynne]

That sounds so much like the center that I worked at... No soap to wash hands, no gloves for changing diapers,no toilet paper, no paper towels to dry hands with, we went 2 months with out a vacume because the owner didn't order the bags, this place had carpet in every room.... And she charges an arm and a leg for 2 snacks that are dried fruit and crackers, the parents provide lunch.. The first week I worked there I spent washing the walls and the toys...they were filthy. I'm so glad that I have my own daycare now, My house is clean, we have fresh fruit and veggies, soap, paper towels, gloves,toilet paper and I provide lunch, I guess I don't understand why parents take their most loved ones to some where like that.

[NightOwl]

From a previous director/owner, don't do it. That was the most stressful time in my life by FAR. I would never ever ever go back to owning a center or being a director. In order to function properly and actually get all the work done, you would need AT LEAST one full time, highly qualified assistant. And because we never made any real money, just broke even, I could never afford that and most other places can't either. Unless of course you charge an arm and a leg and cater to the very well off sector of the public. Working from home and running my own home daycare has been a true godsend. I couldn't possibly be any happier or any less stressed than I am now.

[Sugar Magnolia]

Yay!!! Good for you!! I hope you find a center that truly values your work. I pm'ed you also.

[Unregistered]

I am sorry

As someone who has been in education for over 40 years and in ECE for over 27 years, I have seen all kinds of circumstances. I am sorry that your experience was so discouraging. When you take a director's job, you do take the responsibility of working longer hours, especially when you take over a center that needs to be brought up to code. I often took staff files into a nap room to work on them while I gave a teacher a break. I found teacher's who were my allies and advocate for a better center and empowered them to help in the chores and responsibilities for cleaning and running the center. Even if for an hour so I could take a breather. Those were things that I had control over.
On the other hand, the owners breaking state regulations is not okay. This should be reported to proper authorities. Regulations are put into place for the protection of children. Children should be the number one priority for anyone in the industry.
Owners hiring someone without your approval undermined your authority. There seemed to be unclear boundaries as to who was in charge.
My advice is do not give up on your dream of being a director. Take this as a learning experience and go into the next position with your eyes more open.
Best wishes for your future.

[TaylorTots]

I have found that it takes working at a few bad centers to really understand what makes a good one. Quitting took courage. I would call licensing and make sure your name is taken off as administrator before the school is shut down that way future jobs don't associate you with that facility. You will find a new center and a new director's position and you will be much happier.

Sorry for such a bad experience. :hug:

I have worked in a center that was lacking.

I have worked in a center that wasn't.

The former director was miserable. The latter was happy and ran a great facility.

Keep looking. :hug:

[mrs.banks14]

I dont either

That sounds so much like the center that I worked at... No soap to wash hands, no gloves for changing diapers,no toilet paper, no paper towels to dry hands with, we went 2 months with out a vacume because the owner didn't order the bags, this place had carpet in every room.... And she charges an arm and a leg for 2 snacks that are dried fruit and crackers, the parents provide lunch.. The first week I worked there I spent washing the walls and the toys...they were filthy. I'm so glad that I have my own daycare now, My house is clean, we have fresh fruit and veggies, soap, paper towels, gloves,toilet paper and I provide lunch, I guess I don't understand why parents take their most loved ones to some where like that.

I dont know why parents send their children to a place like this. I would never send my child here. State has been contacted in depth about everything so hopefully they will take everything that I have told them and check it out further. The last director called state and the health department on them. State came my first 20 minutes there.

[mrs.banks14]

Choices

From a previous director/owner, don't do it. That was the most stressful time in my life by FAR. I would never ever ever go back to owning a center or being a director. In order to function properly and actually get all the work done, you would need AT LEAST one full time, highly qualified assistant. And because we never made any real money, just broke even, I could never afford that and most other places can't either. Unless of course you charge an arm and a leg and cater to the very well off sector of the public. Working from home and running my own home daycare has been a true godsend. I couldn't possibly be any happier or any less stressed than I am now.

I have decided yet what I want to do later on in life. I can not own my center at this time whether in my house or not. I live in a camper right now because funds are tight with my husband and I. But I know that we are going to be just fine and I will find something soon. I really believe that I want to open a in home center. I believe I would like it better like that.

[mrs.banks14]

Thank you

As someone who has been in education for over 40 years and in ECE for over 27 years, I have seen all kinds of circumstances. I am sorry that your experience was so discouraging. When you take a director's job, you do take the responsibility of working longer hours, especially when you take over a center that needs to be brought up to code. I often took staff files into a nap room to work on them while I gave a teacher a break. I found teacher's who were my allies and advocate for a better center and empowered them to help in the chores and responsibilities for cleaning and running the center. Even if for an hour so I could take a breather. Those were things that I had control over.
On the other hand, the owners breaking state regulations is not okay. This should be reported to proper authorities. Regulations are put into place for the protection of children. Children should be the number one priority for anyone in the industry.
Owners hiring someone without your approval undermined your authority. There seemed to be unclear boundaries as to who was in charge.
My advice is do not give up on your dream of being a director. Take this as a learning experience and go into the next position with your eyes more open.
Best wishes for your future.

I always took files home and done everything I could to do my job while I was there and at home. I feel like if I had more power and the owners would buy the things that we needed we could have had a decent center at least. Now who knows what is going to happen.

[Annalee]

I dont know why parents send their children to a place like this. I would never send my child here. State has been contacted in depth about everything so hopefully they will take everything that I have told them and check it out further. The last director called state and the health department on them. State came my first 20 minutes there.

Sadly, some parents only see price and hours......nothing more, nothing less.....they blind-eye the things we, as providers, consider to be important. An fcc program was shut down here twice and is now re-opon :confused: and still is full with kids :confused: There is no sane explanation for that! :confused:

[permanentvacation]

I understand that you can not own a home daycare or center right now. But, by having worked as a director in a center, you have had some experience in doing the job that you truly want to do. Sometimes a bad experience can be just as good and helpful as a good experience. By having a bad experience, you know that once you are able to own/operate a home daycare or center of your own, yours will meet higher standards than some of the others out there. Your bad experience might make you want to make your company that much better so you don't allow your company to lower it's standards by any means. It will make you have a 'backbone' with your employees, make you try to figure out why the employees were not dependable; low wages, they were just as disgusted with their work environment as you were, the half an hour walk to take the kids to play wore them out, the entire center being nasty and organized poorly simply made them hate their job. So, now you know how NOT to run your daycare when you get one later in life.

I believe you have just performed great hands-on research on what parents, children, employees, directors, and owners of a daycare do and don't need. Keep the bad layout in your mind, keep all of the bad things from this center in your mind so when you get your own, you know what not to do.

Now, I would go out and look for a job in a really well run center. That way, you will gain hands-on research and experience on the right way to run a center. You will get good ideas on how to operate your own daycare that you will own one day later on.

Don't give up on your dreams because of one bad experience. LEARN from that experience. Keep working in centers to obtain more experiences/research so you can gain the knowledge you need to be able to own a center or be the director of what you know will be the best daycare in the area.

[mrs.banks14]

Yes!

I understand that you can not own a home daycare or center right now. But, by having worked as a director in a center, you have had some experience in doing the job that you truly want to do. Sometimes a bad experience can be just as good and helpful as a good experience. By having a bad experience, you know that once you are able to own/operate a home daycare or center of your own, yours will meet higher standards than some of the others out there. Your bad experience might make you want to make your company that much better so you don't allow your company to lower it's standards by any means. It will make you have a 'backbone' with your employees, make you try to figure out why the employees were not dependable; low wages, they were just as disgusted with their work environment as you were, the half an hour walk to take the kids to play wore them out, the entire center being nasty and organized poorly simply made them hate their job. So, now you know how NOT to run your daycare when you get one later in life.

I believe you have just performed great hands-on research on what parents, children, employees, directors, and owners of a daycare do and don't need. Keep the bad layout in your mind, keep all of the bad things from this center in your mind so when you get your own, you know what not to do.

Now, I would go out and look for a job in a really well run center. That way, you will gain hands-on research and experience on the right way to run a center. You will get good ideas on how to operate your own daycare that you will own one day later on.

Don't give up on your dreams because of one bad experience. LEARN from that experience. Keep working in centers to obtain more experiences/research so you can gain the knowledge you need to be able to own a center or be the director of what you know will be the best daycare in the area.

Yes! I am going to do all of this. I have worked in some highly rated centers and I want my center to be something that I am proud of. Something that my employees and parents are proud of as well. I want to provide the child in my care the best care possible. It is our job as providers to do this for them. They are our future and we need to make sure that we give them everything that is needed other than a babysitter job.

[My3cents]

As most of you know I had my experience as a director. Well here is my story from start to finish pretty much.

This was my first director job. I have always wanted to be a director and got really excited that I had a chance to be one.

I did work off the clock for many hours without getting paid for it. If I didnt take it home there was no way that it would get done. And I was wanting to get all of the paperwork and files right before I start school back on Monday.

I would work hours on end and sometimes all day with out getting a lunch break. Everyone would get a break but me because I would have to break everyone that was there. And then I would have to hep get snack ready and after that I had to cover classrooms because teachers left at that time.

We would go days without having toilet paper. And the teachers would have to share a bathroom with the children with doors that didnt lock.

The owner wiped a childs hands a bleach rag while cleaning up snack one day. Their parent was right there. She would leave the school age children by themselves all the time.

Every time you use the sink in the kitchen leaks into the floor. And the faucet comes right off if you turn the water on to high.

The rooms never gets clean. And they dont have all the centers that we should have. Mats never get clean and the children share blankets because the teachers never pay attention to who has what. And they never send them home.

The staff would never should up to work. They always had some excuse why they needed to leave or not come in at all. One girl had two no call no shows. And after I bitched for so long they moved her down to a sub but didnt fire her. I kept interviewing people for her job but the owners decided that they wanted to bring back another lady that used to work there. They didnt even talked to me first about it. I was trying to give it to someone else.

The owner would leave me to run the whole building by myself with children ranging in ages 1 to 12. I was so out of ratio.

We are supposed to have outside time. And we do go out to play but we walk a half a mile to a park. I had a friend to price us a fence with labor and all brand new. Well that was to high. I found a fence online for super cheap and it was still to high. I even found playground items for cheap from a center that is shutting down. Still wasnt good enough. I was trying my best to get us a playground so we could get more children. That way we could have items that we needed. Cause of right now they can only have 20 kids. They can have 40 with a playground. The other day we had 21 kids. One kid more than we were supposed to have.

The owner was transporting children in her van without transportation her the license.

There were gnats every where. Trash would never get took out. It was just a gross center.

I had to buy out of pocket all the office supplies that I needed.

Staff files were awful. Hardly anyone had TB test or education on files. You cant work with out either of these. And even some people didnt have CAN checks or background checks.

State came the other day and was asking me questions. I told the truth about everything. The state lady said that I should find a new job because of everything that they found could shut the place down. The owners got mad at me because I didnt lie and say how great of center they had. I am not going to lie about anything no matter what. They said that they couldnt trust me anymore. So I quit yesterday. I just couldnt take it there anymore.

I loved the job itself. Just not how the owners were. Everything I said that needed to be done this way or that way or even changed just went in one ear and out the other. I am very discouraged right now about the career path that I want in life. I want to be a director and even own my own center. But after this I dont know if I should.

Just a thought but why don't you open up your own home daycare and do it right from the get go~

I wish you the best.

I too worked in a sloppy center with a horrible lady running it and my horror stories are as bad as yours. I now have my own daycare and I do it right and love every minute of it- esp being my own boss!

[llpa]

From what I have read sounds like you put your all into trying to get this center started in the right direction! You are only one person and that place should be closed. So sorry but you should feel relieved. You did the right thing. :hug:

[mrs.banks14]

I am now

From what I have read sounds like you put your all into trying to get this center started in the right direction! You are only one person and that place should be closed. So sorry but you should feel relieved. You did the right thing. :hug:

Thanks. I am very relieved now. More so after I have quit and have been talking to a state lady all day. The center doesn't have its actual licenses because they have only been opened for a few months now. With everything that has happened the past two weeks there they might get shut down. Which I really hope that they do. These things shouldn't happen. The owner even owns and or hopes run two other centers in another town. I would hate to see how those centers are after working at this one.