i started my son at a new daycare in february. he liked it. this was a license facility located at the owners home. it was her and her daughter that ran the daycare together. altogether there are 4 of them in the family, one of which is a highschool boy who plays baseball. all members of this family refuse to miss any of his baseball games if they are located in town. at the start of my son attending they had me sign a contract and included a permission slip for transportation of my son to these baseball games if i could not pick him up before the game-i did NOT sign it. i work 8am-5pm everyday and the games start at 4:30 in which she said, at the time of signing up, that she would let me know the dates of these games. this week she had sent me a text message at 8PM the night BEFORE a baseball game telling me i had to leave work early the next day and pick up my son by 4pm so they could go to their game. with such short notice i was not able to leave work and she took my son to the game with her without my permission! so a couple questions..

is that even legal?

i immediately removed him from her daycare and he will not be going back because of what she did.. in her contract is states that she needs 4week notice and to be paid for that 4 weeks, but because she broke that part of the contract, do i still need to pay her?

can she send me to collections and have ground to stand on for payment?

I am not insinuating this is your fault at all but am wondering if you called her that day to say you could not leave work with a reminder that you had not signed the permisson to transport slip.

Im not sure what state you're in, but our state paperwork has a consent written right into it.

If your provider is required by law to get a signed permission slip to transport your child, then she is the one in the wrong and did break the contract.

I would definitely call your area licensing office and discuss this with the licensor.

Depending on whether or not she was required to obtain written permission or not will depend on whether or not she can pursue payment for the final four week notice period.

(Clarification: the paperwork has a place where parents check to give consent or deny permission for transportation.)

My opinion is that it was wrong for the provider to transport your child without your permission. Period. She should've stayed home with your child then either given you a warning, terminated care, or whatever, but she shouldn't have taken your child.

It doesn't matter what the parent should or shouldn't have done.

The provider has laws and regulations she MUST follow and if the law in the OP's state says a signed permission slip is required to transport, the provider broke the law.

The parent didn't break any laws.

i am in California.. not sure of all the laws for childcare centers (obviously:/)

basically what i am getting out of this is that i am still obligated to pay the 4 week period after taking him out of her care, BUT she can still be in some trouble with transporting my son without permission...??

I think someone from California would know more and have the right answers for you.

Hang on and I will see if I can prompt a California member to respond.

It sounds like she told you of these situations when you signed up with her. Since you had knowledge of this in the beginning, I believe you would be responsible for upholding your part of the contract. I don't necessarily believe it was right of her to transport, but if you knew this would a possibility in the beginning, you would have been better off finding another provider.

If I were your provider and you pulled your child from my care, I'd send you to collections for nonpayment.

But it depends on what if any plan of action the provider and parent had about notice for early pick up, how often it happens and what the provider will do if the parent can't pick up early.

Simply saying I want you (the parent) to leave work early every time I ask you, even with short notice is not a legal binding agreement/

If you were that set on her not transporting your son I think you should of made sure he was picked up. It seems that she made it very clear that she either needed to be able to transport or needed you to pick up early on days she had games to attend. Im not saying that her transporting without your permission is ok BUT she had plans.....and its you responsibility to get him picked up on time.

he has games for a month and a half-til the middle to end of may. she did this to me monday night and tuesday she said the next game was this week on thursday in which i would have to leave work again..

i understand that this is in part my fault and that i should have found another daycare provider, but i am a single mom that works full time and goes to school ALL without ANY type of financial aid or assistance. she was the one i could afford, so i went with her..i have to keep my job and at the same time i want my son to be happy and safe..i didn't know what else to do with such a time crunch trying to find a daycare

ITA with this.

yes i did.. in fact, she texted me and said that i did not approve transportation therefore i would need to pick him up early.. and it was the DAY OF the game in which case i could not just tell my boss i wanted to leave

Kelliot.... I'm curious as the others.... Was there a particular reason you didn't approve her to transport?

So after you get this text saying you need to pick him up early... what did you do??? Did you try to have an adult conversation/explanation with this provider...Or you just stayed passive waiting to see how far could you push your personal interests over this provider's personal life!!

Now, if this provider, as many others, had to give you a short notice due to her own illness... would you just ignore it the same way??!!! Do you really do not have a back up plan for these situations?????! ...or you just intentionally decided to not use it this time !!!

The provider was in the wrong... but I'm getting the impression that also this parent is intentionally trying to push this providers buttons and just used this event as an opportunity!

This seems to me more like a power struggle of "who's the boss" and it is so sad to see one parent jeopardizing his child safety and a provider jeopardizing her license for such a childish behavior!

#1. i had texted her FIRST that day stating that my boss said i could not leave earlier than 4:30..4:30 is the time the baseball game started, she could have missed the first 10 minutes..
#2. an illness is quite different in my eyes as i am sure most people feel that way. EVERYTIME my son got an illness there i left work and was able to pick him up...this was not an emergency
#3.i am a SINGLE mother.. my parents are divorced and my father moved to another state, so no, i do not have back up sitters i can just call on a whim. the ONLY family i have within 300 miles of me is my mother, who mind you, works 12 hours a day and owns a business-perhaps i don't need to explain to you that she cannot just leave work when she feels like it...?
#4 i am telling my side of the story and answering the questions asked. you do not know me outside of this forum so keeping your judgement to yourself would be appreciated

You received the day before very clear instructions to pick up your child earlier... you ignored it!!! ...and now you expect us to not judge your decision but only to judge your provider's decision!!

This is her business... she decides when it is important to close the daycare... she was very clear from the beginning with you that these games were important... you lead her thinking you would cooperate at the time of the events... You “gambled” and now you're putting on “The Victim” label and trying again to get privileges by not paying the 4 weeks in the contract!!!

We all in this forum are very familiar with parents that feel entitled for special treatment and find their lives more important than the providers' lives... so it becomes very easy to recognize one and read between the lines!

You and the provider were both wrong! Accept accountability...

I am curious as to why you signed up with her?? She did tell you she would not miss her son's games & I can't say I blame her. She should have possibly given you more notice BUT she did tell you in advance she wouldn't miss a game. I have 3 boys in baseball & would do the same in a heartbeat. My family has to come first. That said we never have games that early so I wouldn't be transporting kids to them.

I don't know about the contract although you did sign saying you would pay for 4 weeks. She should not have transported without notice but if she did give you notice of the game why did you not pick up on time????

at my work i have to fill out a form to request time off.. when she let me know about this early pick-up it was 8pm and was not able to do that until the day of, which my boss would not let me do

Did you two have a plan in place for times you were not able to leave work early?

Was there a minimum notice time in which she had to let you know that you had to pick up early?

How far in advance did she normally tell you there was a game?

this was the first game and she told me at 8pm the night before the day i had to leave work early. she says that she told me ahead of time and gave me plenty of time to arrange his pickup, but she didn't give me dates on when these games would be whatsoever..

If there was no written agreement in regards to this, the provider is still the one in the wrong.

A provider cannot just transport a child without written permission if the requires it.

She was in the wrong for transporting without permission and for the amount of notice given, as usually the whole game schedule is given out all at once.

However, you were aware of the situation and therefore should have made arrangements with your boss way ahead of time (in February when you signed up with her) for this to happen, or you could have found someone to pick up your child on game days, or you could have found someone else to care for your child that did not have this issue.

Was the provider made aware at the time that you signed up with her of your company's policy on asking for time off?

Was this was the first game of the season? It's very possible that they just got the schedule, and gave you what notice they could.




I'm not saying that she's totally at fault or that you are - it seems like neither of you were proactive enough in the beginning. This should have been worked out well before the beginning of baseball season.

Now I think that the two of you need to talk this through before you move forward.

because the notice she gave me was less than 24 hours before his game and i had no time ahead to give my boss notice..i can't just show up to work and tell him when i want to leave..i have to fill out a request form for time off

So, you were told that your son needed to be picked up by 4, and did not pick him up. Many daycare centers would have called Social Services when you did not pick up your son when the daycare closed for the day (at 4). Instead, this woman just took your son with her to her family event. You should thank her for continuing to care for your son AFTER her business closed for the day. I know a non-profit center in my town that gives you 15 minutes after pickup time to pick up your child (at $5 per minute), after 15 minutes, the Child Protection Officers arrive to pick up your child.

If you had a problem with transport, in my opinion, you should have enrolled your child somewhere that did NOT want permission to do so. I understand your frustration that you feel your wishes were ignored, but you should not have assumed that failing to sign a permission slip conveyed your wishes, nor that it was acceptance by the provider of your wishes.

I am no attorney, but I would guess that since you gave no notice, you're going to be sued for 4 weeks tuition, and will probably lose.

in the parents defense, I don't think it was ok for the provider to give a one day advance notice that pick up needed to take place at an earlier time than normal.

I also do not think it was ok for the provider to take the child to the game knowing that the mother did not want her child transported.

If she was a good provider, she would have had her daughter stay with the child or she herself would have stayed with him.

I do agree that they should not have gone into a daycare arrangement together because this was an issue from the start....

More confusion from the state of california, of course.

Anybody from California interested in conducting a research study with me on the inconsistencies of licensing regulations/procedures?????

lol I dont think I have that long to live....hahahahhaha

So does that mean that not all counties have this permission form?

I can't imagine that the rules for childcares are not the same from county to county in one state.

We have one book (per type of childcare) for the entire state that covers rules and regulations.

California is TERRIBLY inconsistent with regs.

California, the land of the fruits and the nuts....who knows....lol

my family says to me all the time that ca is so crazy and that nothing ever makes sense to them at all when it comes to this state. Guess CA didn't want to discriminate on their ability to confuse so they made sure DC LIC can confuse us too....lol

I'm all for this!

It sounds like the provider was completely wrong here. She had no right to transport your child without permission.

I wouldn't pay and take my chances that she might win in court....if it even goes that far. However, if you owe her for any care she has already given then, of course, she needs to be paid for that.

Laurel

I have to agree with Willow in the sense that some of the key facts are obviously missing from this story. See above: THEY HAD ME SIGN A CONTRACT AND INCLUDED A PERMISSION SLIP FOR TRANSPORTATION OF MY SON TO THERE BASEBALL GAMES IF I COULD NOT PICK HIM UP BEFORE THE GAME.

If the above was in the contract including the IF I COULD NOT PICK HIM UP BEFORE THE GAME. I think it is safe to say that the true wording of the contract likely stipulated that parent's had two options. They could allow transportation to these baseball games OR they could pick up their child.

I feel we are not getting the full story.

so this thread does not get hairy, I think that we can all agree and learn that this was not a good business deal from the start.

I think we should just leave it at that...

As providers, we should learn from this that if a family cannot comply with all of our polices of our PHB, then they are not a good fit for us and enter into an agreement together when everyone is not on the same page. The parent should recognize the same. In the end, it is us provider who makes the final decision if a family is allowed to enroll or not....NOt the parents..

We should not offer special just for families, we know in the end, most of the time it never works out..... THis case proves it.

there is a lot of confusion in this thread, and we are only getting one side of the story here. All we can do is make a lot of assumptions of what did or did not happen...

I stopped posting on this form because I got tired of the outta control post and I just started posting again this week, just to find out that I guess these types of post are always going to exists......

Hopefully we can all keep this civil..........

Crystal - to be fair, how many providers don't consider or simply don't give a rip about parents' feelings when they charge for time they're not actually caring for a child? Or for their own vacations. And holidays. And sick days. Etc. When they have to hand over loads of cash upfront for deposits, and to pay for services they haven't even yet been provided?

What you and others may consider good business practice others find abhorrent, so who's right?

I too wonder how providers stay in business with some of their practices but the fact of the matter is it's none of my business because it's no skin off my teeth. Providers can implement whatever they want to and if parents sign up then they need to gracefully accept the agreement that was made and abide by it.

Whatever a providers stipulations are, that's their own personal business and I don't think they deserve to be judged for them. Especially when we're only hearing one side of the story, especially when we could all sit here and pick each other apart for things we think are nuts. What would be the point?



I don't care the reasons behind this provider feeling the need to go to every single one of her child's baseball games. For all we know her child has terminal cancer and is dying, or is a senior who is starting this last season. Perhaps he's overcome something big in his life and it's important to him for his parents to see him now succeed in something he loves.

There was a breakdown of communication somewhere along the line. It happens to the best of us. I would assume licensing would have taken action if it would have been warranted, it speaks volumes that they did nothing in response to a mother calling and giving them the whole dirty on what happened from her point of view.


I do believe there is more to life than doing daycare and I think far too many parents have no respect for that.

https://www.daycare.com/forum/showthread.php?t=60861

Did any of you remember this thread?

It's a provider's point of view of a similar situation...

The event is a PROVIDER'S BEING SICK instead of PROVIDER'S SON BASEBALL GAME... but I think it has some similarities with the present thread in the sense that a mother assumed her job's demands entitled her to ignore the provider's short notice that the daycare would be closed.


Ok... PROVIDER'S BEING SICK it's an emergency and the BASEBALL GAME it is not... but in the other hand, these games where something expected by this mother and she should be better prepared for the situation.

BUT, what I find interesting is how different, this somehow similar situation, was received by this forum.

In the “PROVIDER'S BEING SICK” thread most members were shocked by that mother's attitude in dropping off the child despite the provider's notice... In this “PROVIDER'S SON BASEBALL GAME” thread most members think the mother was not in fault by not picking up her child earlier after being informed by provider to do so...

I can't make sense of that!!