Originally Posted by itsallaboutthekids:
What we need to institute is a system similar to the public school 'absence line.'
If a child does not show up at school AND the parents haven't call to let the school know that; they call to find out the whereabouts of that child.
It is the PARENTS RESPONSIBILITY to call if the child is going to be absent. BUT, if their child is not present and they have not received a call from the parent; the school does call.
It seems reasonable for a similar system to be instituted at daycare facilities. One would hope it would be a rare occurrence that a child is not in attendance when they are scheduled to be there.
Additionally; if you are being paid for an entire day of taking care of them and their safety; a phone call seems to be a small 'ask' in exchange for receiving full-pay even when the child is not there.
Yet, hundreds of children would still be alive today if a daycare provider had called to find the whereabouts of a child left alone in a vehicle.
Think about your current policies surrounding what happens if children are NOT picked up at the agreed upon time. All sorts of protocols are in place for that occurrence.
You could even "charge" parents who don't call to let you know about the whereabouts of their child if a family becomes a repeat offender.
Thoughts?
An automated call or even a personal call made from a school with an actual secretary is vastly different from a home daycare. Parents show up late all of the time, forget to tell us about vacations, schedule changes and forget to call in when their child is sick. For some parents it's habitual and you just never know if their child is coming until they show up 2 hours late.
Imagine 8 families all arriving about the same time, Conversations with parents, well child checks at the door and dealing with separation anxiety. Then it's time to serve 8 children breakfast and deal with cooking, washing hands, documenting for the food program, serving, cleaning up. Little Johny hasnt arrived yet. This happens a lot and in the past you've called only to find out they slept in or he's not coming that day so it's not irregular that he hasn't arrived yet. You decide to call but wait, someone just threw their food on the floor, had a blow out diaper...etc. maybe after all of this you forget to call or maybe you remember but by now it's 2 hours after he was supposed to arrive when you finally get a chance to do so. What if you text instead? What if you call and no one answers so you leave a voice mail? Where would the liability end? Would providers have to call until they actually talked to a parent? Providers can't and shouldn't shoulder this responsibility. Could we charge parents for not calling in? Sure but that would be just one more fee we'd have to argue with parents about and still doesn't solve the problem of what if we don't call right away because we're taking care of multiple children of varied ages by ourselves.