Nope.

There's another new teacher in the center who had the same reaction to the child running out the door (we were actually told by the owner to keep the door open to allow for airflow). She, too, has worked in a larger nationwide daycare chain where a child running out of the classroom means instant termination.

Today, for the start of the "school year" we had 14 children in our class. They are all roughly between 21 and 27 months of age, so they all fall in the 1:6 ratio. When we got numbers 13 and 14 and I saw the director I told her that we were out of ratio and needed a third teacher.

"The ratio for this room is 1:7."

No. None of the children are over 2-1/2, so they are ALL in the 1:6 ratio range. Therefore, none of the children bump the ratio up to 1:7. She claimed that since several of them are two that it bumps the ratio up (like at 18 months it's 1:6, at 21 months it's 1:7, at 2 it's 1:8, 2 years, 3 months it's 1:9, etc.) I'm pretty sure it doesn't work like that.

Now, it's possible that back in JUNE before the summer session started, there were several children who were 2-1/2 in the room which would have bumped the ratio up to 1:7, but those children have since moved up into another class. I suspect that this is what happened when I was told that the 2-1/2 year old class was a 1:8 ratio. It's possible that there were children in that class who weren't 30 months old; that would have pulled the ratio down temporarily. That's why you can't just rely on memory to remember what the ratio is for a classroom as they can fluctuate slightly. It doesn't matter that there were enough older children in May/June to bump the ratio up; this isn't the case anymore.

I also had to remind the assistant director that we needed two teachers in the room during naptime. Naptime ratios are higher, but our class is a 1:12 ratio during nap, and we had 14.

I'm not sure if the director is completely ignorant of the law or if she's just ignoring it and trying to gaslight me into thinking I'm crazy.

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