When Have You Ever Kicked a Family Out?

[Proserpina]

I hope I am posting this in the right forum (otherwise, moderators, please feel free to move this thread). I am not a daycare provider myself, but have a question for them.

My son was suddenly thrown out of a daycare in May of this year. I don't want to bog you down with details; what's important was that they were overcharging me and did not want to answer my very mild inquiries about my bill. The district manager expelled my son without warning or notice via phone. What really shocked me was she said something like, "Well, we can keep on discussing this, or I can call the police." We were on the phone, and I hadn't made any threats to her or even raised my voice. She could have hung up any time she wanted. It was like she made the threat of calling the police reflexively.

Since that event, I have been looking into this daycare chain and learned a lot of troubling things. Indeed and GlassDoor are full of reviews from disgruntled employees who say it's a terrible place to work, and Yelp is brimming with bad reviews from customers. Two of its ten locations (they are all owned by the same person, not a franchise) were shut down by DCFS in 2015, within a month of each other.

More importantly though, I have located at least three other customers who were expelled without warning or notice, all of them by the same District Manager. Two of them reported that the District Manager threatened to call the police, and one reported that she did call the police. I'm seeing a troubling pattern of kicking people out suddenly without warning or notice and then using police to try and intimidate them.

So, here is what I was hoping other daycare owners and providers could tell me:

(1) Other than outright non-payment of tuition & fees, under what circumstances have you ever kicked a family out without warning or notice?

(2) Under what circumstances have you called the police or threatened to call the police on a family?

Please feel free to share your process for removing a family from your daycare. Thank you in advance for your time.

[daycare]

I hope I am posting this in the right forum (otherwise, moderators, please feel free to move this thread). I am not a daycare provider myself, but have a question for them.

My son was suddenly thrown out of a daycare in May of this year. I don't want to bog you down with details; what's important was that they were overcharging me and did not want to answer my very mild inquiries about my bill. The district manager expelled my son without warning or notice via phone. What really shocked me was she said something like, "Well, we can keep on discussing this, or I can call the police." We were on the phone, and I hadn't made any threats to her or even raised my voice. She could have hung up any time she wanted. It was like she made the threat of calling the police reflexively.

Since that event, I have been looking into this daycare chain and learned a lot of troubling things. Indeed and GlassDoor are full of reviews from disgruntled employees who say it's a terrible place to work, and Yelp is brimming with bad reviews from customers. Two of its ten locations (they are all owned by the same person, not a franchise) were shut down by DCFS in 2015, within a month of each other.

More importantly though, I have located at least three other customers who were expelled without warning or notice, all of them by the same District Manager. Two of them reported that the District Manager threatened to call the police, and one reported that she did call the police. I'm seeing a troubling pattern of kicking people out suddenly without warning or notice and then using police to try and intimidate them.

So, here is what I was hoping other daycare owners and providers could tell me:

(1) Other than outright non-payment of tuition & fees, under what circumstances have you ever kicked a family out without warning or notice?

(2) Under what circumstances have you called the police or threatened to call the police on a family?

Please feel free to share your process for removing a family from your daycare. Thank you in advance for your time.

wow.... Sorry to hear that you are going through this. knowing only one side of the story, I can't really help too much.

Most of us here are in-home programs, so rules are much different.

the only time I have ever kicked out a family without notice was many years ago when I first started, a parents used racism towards my very diverse family. The dcd said it front of me and my children. It was pick up time, I waited until he left, then called the wife and said I will not be able to provide care for your family any longer due to what just happened. She was very sorry for her husbands words, but for me there was NO apology big enough to forgive.

I have never called the police on a family.

this whole situation of your sounds rather fishy. Is the owner not all there??

[Blackcat31]

I hope I am posting this in the right forum (otherwise, moderators, please feel free to move this thread). I am not a daycare provider myself, but have a question for them.

My son was suddenly thrown out of a daycare in May of this year. I don't want to bog you down with details; what's important was that they were overcharging me and did not want to answer my very mild inquiries about my bill. The district manager expelled my son without warning or notice via phone. What really shocked me was she said something like, "Well, we can keep on discussing this, or I can call the police." We were on the phone, and I hadn't made any threats to her or even raised my voice. She could have hung up any time she wanted. It was like she made the threat of calling the police reflexively.

Since that event, I have been looking into this daycare chain and learned a lot of troubling things. Indeed and GlassDoor are full of reviews from disgruntled employees who say it's a terrible place to work, and Yelp is brimming with bad reviews from customers. Two of its ten locations (they are all owned by the same person, not a franchise) were shut down by DCFS in 2015, within a month of each other.

More importantly though, I have located at least three other customers who were expelled without warning or notice, all of them by the same District Manager. Two of them reported that the District Manager threatened to call the police, and one reported that she did call the police. I'm seeing a troubling pattern of kicking people out suddenly without warning or notice and then using police to try and intimidate them.

So, here is what I was hoping other daycare owners and providers could tell me:

(1) Other than outright non-payment of tuition & fees, under what circumstances have you ever kicked a family out without warning or notice?

(2) Under what circumstances have you called the police or threatened to call the police on a family?

Please feel free to share your process for removing a family from your daycare. Thank you in advance for your time.

The truth IS in the details.

The fact that you are glossing over them and that you are putting this much time and effort into researching the history and past clients of this facility 5 months after being terminated and coupled with the fact that this "issue" seems rooted in a dispute over money says to me that you need to let it go and move on.

I'm not understanding what you want?
What is your purpose?

Not wanting to pay a bill?
Hire an attorney. They can help with contract details etc.

Wanting a refund?
same as above... get an attorney

Wanting to re-enroll?
WHY? I would not return.

Shutting them down?
Vindictive. Move on and let it go.
It's a bad example for your child.

[Mike]

Other than money, the only time I'd kick a family out is if the child or the parents were a problem for the other children or myself, then it would either be immediate or 2 week notice if it wasn't drastic. The only time I'd call the police is if there was an imminent danger, or if there was a serious threat.

[Controlled Chaos]

Yep, to Black Cat , why WE kick anyone out of our daycare programs have nothing to do with another businesses policies and choices.

You didn't share details, but it sounds like you didn't want to pay your bill. I would also terminate care if a family refused to pay.

If they breached contract hire a lawyer. Otherwise - read the contract and handbook of your new provider more closely this time.

[Pestle]

Blackcat is right--it's time to cut your losses and, for the sake of your own mental health, move on from this chapter. I had a brutal firing from a job once, and ended up with nightmares and crying fits afterward. Rejection feels terrible, especially when it seems unjust, but remember that the best thing here is to no longer be in a relationship with the person who hurt you.

Are you worried about whether you'll repeat the behavior that led to termination? Good reasons to terminate a contract include, but aren't limited to:

-Late pick up
-Late payments or underpayments
-Failing to pay or disputing additional fees (like late payment/late pick up charges)
-Parent persistently not providing supplies (clean clothing, diapers, etc.) as required and requested

Those are all reasons that the parent is COSTING the day care money instead of adding to the day care's income.
Good reasons that relate to safety and the well-being of everyone at the day care can include:

-Sneaking a contagious child into the day care when the parent knows the child is sick
-Not responding when there's an emergency and the day care contacts the parent
-Parent getting into conflict with the staff
-Child has not acclimated to care; e.g., child cries throughout the day and won't be consoled; child is acting out frustration and injuring other children/staff or damaging the property

There are lots of other reasons. Sometimes it's just a bad fit. This experience is an opportunity for your family to find a good fit.

[Proserpina]

daycare ~ Wow, I'm sorry to hear about that! I can definitely see kicking a family out for making racist comments. You can't have families upsetting other families like that or you could lose the other, non-racist families.

I really do not know what is wrong with the owner of this chain of daycares; as a human resources professional, I find some of the things that are reported of his businesses on the review sites to be lawsuit timebombs.

Mike ~ Thanks for answering my question.

You didn't share details, but it sounds like you didn't want to pay your bill. I would also terminate care if a family refused to pay.

This is simply not true. I had a credit card with the daycare on file and my bills came out of that automatically---never bounced. I have excellent credit and make timely payment on all of my bills. Besides, my OP said clearly that I understood a daycare would terminate if a family outright refused to pay or failed to pay.

There were several issues, but as I said, the main one was that they were charging me wildly different amounts for the same amount of care, or charging me more for even less care. For example, one week had care for three days, 6.5 hours each day, for which I was charged $143. Another week my son had care for two 6.5-hour days and one 2-hour day and I was charged $171. I have read their tuition policy thoroughly and can make no sense of it. I understand that everyone makes mistakes, but my gentle questions about these variations in my bill were pretty much ignored up until my son was suddenly thrown out.

The amount that they owe me is now less than $200, so no, I am not interested in filing a lawsuit over it. I have done the usual non-lawsuit methods for contesting the balance (filing a chargeback with my bank for part of the balance and contesting the rest through the attorney general's office). I was recently contacted by another former customer (via my Yelp review) who is considering legal action against the daycare. I was surprised to learn that she had a near-identical story of being suddenly thrown out without warning or notice and with this same manager threatening to call the police. This left me wondering how typical this is among daycares.

An equally-important issue was that I only enrolled my son there under the promise that I could have a flexible schedule. I realize that not a lot of daycares offer this because a child with a flexible schedule pretty much uses up a full-time slot without paying as much (but if you have the space, why not?). Had they not offered me a flexible schedule, I would have went somewhere else. At the time of expulsion, they tried to claim that they had never offered me any such thing and that I was flaunting their attendance policies by refusing to get on a fixed schedule. Both my contract and the e-mails I have from the director who enrolled me verify that I was offered a flexible schedule, but they weren't interested in discussion they were interested in calling the police (??).

To be clear: I'm not looking for advice on how to proceed with this daycare (I've already made up my mind there and taken all of the action that I plan to take), nor am I looking for anyone to weigh in on me vs. them. I'm just looking to have my questions answered as to your own experience with suddenly disenrolling a family or calling the police on them, and if you don't want to share, no worries.

I have interviewed a lot of wonderful daycare providers (in-home, private religious, and larger businesses) in the last few months. My son now has care that he loves and the owners treat their customers with respect. The contrast has been amazing and I'm sincerely grateful for all of the good daycare providers of the world.

[Proserpina]

remember that the best thing here is to no longer be in a relationship with the person who hurt you.

I completely agree with you here, and have gotten very good at cutting abusive people out of my life in recent years. See my post above. While the AG complaint is still in process, I have otherwise cut all ties from the daycare and made no attempt to contact them since late May. And if the AG complaint goes nowhere, I don't intend to pursue it further.

I was pretty angry after it happened; my son is a creature of routine (he was diagnosed with a developmental delay last month and is under evaluation for ADHD/high-functioning autism, though I didn't know it in May), and losing his daycare routine really upset him. He had built relationships with his teachers and peers, had begun making progress on potty-training with them, and they severed all of that rapidly without the slightest thought for his well-being. I'm also a single mother and don't have family that can pinch-hit for me on care while I lined up another daycare. But I never had any problem with loss of sleep, etc.

I am not worried in the least that it was "something I did." This was my first experience using toddler care on any kind of a regular basis, which is why I did not do more research (e.g. the bad Yelp and Indeed reviews). I've learned the hard way I'm afraid.

My son was actually "disenrolled" from a second daycare in August (after only 2 days there), but this time it had nothing to do with any disagreement with me. This was a private religious daycare and they were the first to suggest that my son was disabled; they said they couldn't handle him. As a religious daycare, they were exempt from Title III of the ADA. I did not get angry or give them a bad review on Yelp or anything of the sort because, while I was shocked and it was sudden, they were compassionate about the process, tried to help me find new care for my son (if ineptly), and fully refunded my August tuition and my enrollment fee. I would still recommend this daycare to anyone who asked.

Which is only to say that there are ways to do these things and not earn the ire of customers.

Thanks for your thorough list of reasons though, Pestle. I suppose the daycare could accuse me of disputing my bill, but they acknowledged overcharging me on several occasions, including one occasion where they straight-up double-charged me; they were the ones to contact me to acknowledge the double-charge, and I told them to just credit me for the next week rather than refunding me. I think I was right to keep a careful eye on my bill after that. I used a different daycare for 6 weeks in the interim while seeking out a more permanent solution, and they double-charged me, too. I'm always going to be someone who carefully checks her bill and gently asks questions about discrepancies.

None of the other things on your list were issues. I didn't have any conflict with staff until the day the manager called me and kicked my son out (and that conflict was largely post-expulsion).

[Nurse Jackie]

The only reason I would term immediately after the two week trail period would be lack of payment, a child or parent being mentally or physically abusive, or continuous late pick ups. My parents will never have to question their bill because, unless their using a vacation day, their bill would be the same week to week. I do not allow parents to change up days and hours needed for care on a week to week basis unless they use the drop in care option.

[renodeb]

I agree with Pestle. Those are the reasons I would term a family. I really wish you had shared the details but I take terming a family very seriously.
The last time I termed a family with no notice was involving a biting incident that happened earlier in the day which I handled at that time and when the dad of the victim arrived he approached the child that bit in a very intimidating way and shook his finger at him which made him cry and I termed that day. (there are more details but that's the jist of it)
I would say to move on! Cut your losses.
Deb

[EntropyControlSpecialist]

Blackcat is right--it's time to cut your losses and, for the sake of your own mental health, move on from this chapter. I had a brutal firing from a job once, and ended up with nightmares and crying fits afterward. Rejection feels terrible, especially when it seems unjust, but remember that the best thing here is to no longer be in a relationship with the person who hurt you.

Are you worried about whether you'll repeat the behavior that led to termination? Good reasons to terminate a contract include, but aren't limited to:

-Late pick up
-Late payments or underpayments
-Failing to pay or disputing additional fees (like late payment/late pick up charges)
-Parent persistently not providing supplies (clean clothing, diapers, etc.) as required and requested

Those are all reasons that the parent is COSTING the day care money instead of adding to the day care's income.
Good reasons that relate to safety and the well-being of everyone at the day care can include:

-Sneaking a contagious child into the day care when the parent knows the child is sick
-Not responding when there's an emergency and the day care contacts the parent
-Parent getting into conflict with the staff
-Child has not acclimated to care; e.g., child cries throughout the day and won't be consoled; child is acting out frustration and injuring other children/staff or damaging the property

There are lots of other reasons. Sometimes it's just a bad fit. This experience is an opportunity for your family to find a good fit.

Yes.

[Cat Herder]

they were charging me wildly different amounts

three days, 6.5 hours each day

two 6.5-hour days and one 2-hour day

I only enrolled my son there under the promise that I could have a flexible schedule.

My clients also may use my services on a flexible schedule, but tuition is not based on attendance. My full time rate is due in full, whether the child attends 1 hour or all 60 available hours, per week.

Is it possible you misinterpreted a similar policy then argued it's validity? :confused: (it is the policy of the majority of current daycares)

I have had it happen before, even after covering it quite clearly in the enrollment interview, before accepting a family into care. It resolved quickly and they stayed on, as I had several families waiting for their slot. For a moment during the discussion this family honestly thought I'd cave and accept less pay.

The vast majority of my family terminations were due to an adults failure to follow policies they agreed to during enrollment interviews.