Mind Your Business, Co-worker

[Bookworm]

Ten minutes ago, I got off a conference call with my Director and a parent new to my class over a coworker's interference.

Backstory: DCB-4 was playing in kitchen center and kept stepping in the chairs. After the second warning, he was asked to clean his area and leave the center. He was redirected to another center, end of story. Well a co-worker, who was helping me with an art project saw the incident and took it upon herself to tell mom that DCB is banned from the kitchen center for jumping on the furniture and not cleaning.

Fast forward this morning: DCM asks to speak with me in private. We went into the office and she asked why didn't I leave an incident report on DCB. Confused, I asked her what happened. That's when she told me what co-worker said. I told her that's not what happened. As I explained what DCB actually did, I saw her getter madder and madder. When I asked what's wrong, she said that because of what DCB allegedly did, he couldn't go to some event with expensive tickets and no refund. I explained to her that I don't do incident reports on something that minor and if she ever got a note/phone call from me, it's serious. She apologized for being angry with me and said she will be talking with my Director this afternoon.

During the call, mom was calm but you could tell she was p****d. I think she was more mad at herself for not believing DCB and verifying with me. My Director apologized and said she will talk with co-worker (not gonna happen). I finally old mom that if you didn't hear it from me personally in a note, text, phone call, or face to face, please call me to verify. Mom and DCB left and my Director said we would talk in the morning.

All my co-worker had to do was mind her business. I get that she was a witness but she had no business embellishing a story on DCB. I might be overreacting but this is not the first time she has done this. This is the first time I was involved. It's so much easier to work with kids, uggggggggggh. Sorry for the length and rant over.

[Indoorvoice]

Ugh. I'm sorry. It's no fun working with coworkers who aren't on the same page as you or who overstep their boundaries. I used to be a special ed teacher and had 2 parapros. They continually did stuff like this to me. I had zero control because I didn't have time to manage all of my students plus them. I really feel your pain. It ultimately led me to quit teaching because I hated working with people.

[Sugar Magnolia]

UUUGGGGHHHH

You shouldn't have to babysit your co workers. I'd be ticked. Are you the lead, and the coworker an assistant?

sorry you are dealing with this:hug:

[lynne]

I'd be having a talk with your coworker, I had this happen when I worked for a center. I ended up with a parent really pissed at me too. I talked to the parent and told her what happened. She didn't like me after that and held a grudge for something I didn't do. I told my coworker that she should tell the parent the truth..That she was the one that screwed up. She wouldn't, she was the reason that I left that job...That and the boss thought she was wonderful,very girlie like the boss. I have a few parents that came with me when I left....They saw what was going on and didn't want their kids there. ( coworker was on her phone all day and wasn't paying attention to the kids, a couple of parents told me that they went to pickup their kids and the child was sitting by the door screaming and coworker was texting on her phone.)Of course the boss is on her phone all day too...I hated working there.

[Unregistered]

Ugh. I'm sorry. It's no fun working with coworkers who aren't on the same page as you or who overstep their boundaries. I used to be a special ed teacher and had 2 parapros. They continually did stuff like this to me. I had zero control because I didn't have time to manage all of my students plus them. I really feel your pain. It ultimately led me to quit teaching because I hated working with people.

This is why I'm glad I was let go from teaching before I reached tenure. I worked in a head start. Instead of calling the aide an "aide" we had to call them "teacher 2". This woman was grandfathered in and about 50. So, she had never set a foot in college in her life. Every time she's do something that was developmentally inappropriate and I called her out on it she'd begin "I'm a TEACHER. My job title is TEACHER. You're not the only TEACHER". Aides can be trouble makers. That's why I'm glad I don't have an aide or coworkers. They can really work a nerve. I'l give an example she taught them some version of the alphabet song where in between they'd sing HEY HEY HEY to the tune of the do do do do do do HEY HEY HEY like they play in sports arenas to get people amped up. The slower children and children who didn't know their letters would just start screaming HEY HEY HEY on loop. Eventually, it got to all the children just signing HEY HEY HEY. While's smirking and saying the letters softly. It became a power struggle and of course the children liked that song better. I'd say let's sing the right version and she'd ask the children which version they wanted. I'm very glad not to have an aide any more.

[Bookworm]

Oh, I will be talking to her tomorrow along with my Director. Thing is, she is not my asst. I'm the only teacher who doesn't have one (by choice). She's one of the teachers in the 3s class. She was in my class because her numbers were low and she volunteered to help. She doesn't like DCB and the entire time he was in her class, his parents received negative reports. I truly believe this was done out of spite because there was no reason to say anything to his mom.

Lynne, this is the pretty much the same situation. My Director won't do anything because they're buddies. There have been numerous complaints from teachers and parents and we've all been blown off. Why do adults have to spoil the joy of working with children?

[melilley]

Ugh, the joys of working in a center with others.
I'm a 14 year center veteran. I was the lead teacher in two of the centers that I worked at and know what you are going through. It's hard to get others, specifically coworkers to understand what is appropriate to say and how to not overstep boundaries. Often times teachers who aren't the lead teachers say things to parents that isn't appropriate. Lead teachers are the lead teacher for a reason.

As for the director and being friends with certain employees, I have been there also. I had one director who would always favor one of my coworkers and it was ridiculous, I don't get it. I guess some people can't separate friendship from work. I was fortunate to only have that happen once, but it was so irritating.

[Play Care]

Oh, I will be talking to her tomorrow along with my Director. Thing is, she is not my asst. I'm the only teacher who doesn't have one (by choice). She's one of the teachers in the 3s class. She was in my class because her numbers were low and she volunteered to help. She doesn't like DCB and the entire time he was in her class, his parents received negative reports. I truly believe this was done out of spite because there was no reason to say anything to his mom.

Lynne, this is the pretty much the same situation. My Director won't do anything because they're buddies. There have been numerous complaints from teachers and parents and we've all been blown off. Why do adults have to spoil the joy of working with children?

Ugh! I feel your pain. In college I worked in a day care center. The *cook* would sometimes be brought in to make ratios (she had the necessary training to do this but did not like to...) She would also blow things out of proportion, etc. but was also so unprofessional with the parents - telling them the kids behaved terribly, or were naughty, etc. why she was allowed to speak to parents was something I never understood.
I don't know that I could work with adults again.

[Bookworm]

Well, I had a talk with co-worker and Director. I told co-worker that because she's not the teacher in my class, she should not be reporting anything to my parents unless I ask her to. She asked what should she do if I'm off. If I'm off, it has nothing to do with me and she needs to take it to the Director. I told all my parents this morning to verify any info with me to avoid miscommunications. My Director tried to tell me not to be so hard on co-worker and I told her no. I've seen too many situations like this turn bad and it will not happen to me. Now co-worker is mad at me. Oh well, if you'd kept your mouth shut in the first place this wouldn't have happened.