about a week ago my wife complained to the daycare about our son getting bit twice in one day, after several previous incidents in his new classroom.

2 days later they claim he was "chasing after a kid that took a toy he wanted to play with" and he fell and injured his hand, it swelled up and they gave us a form to sign for the state and sent us to the emergency room to get an x-ray done. The xray showed no breaks except for a POSSIBLE hairline fracture on his little finger.


He is 2 1/2 years old and we are residents of texas state.

Im writing this because they were as nice as possible up untill the REQUIRED state investigator came in today to investigate the incident. When my wife arrived today to pick him up after the state investigator had left they had his stuff in the main office and gave us absolutely no notice other than a note that says "today is your sons last day, find him a new daycare".

So he got hurt because they cant do their jobs, and now one of us has to miss work to find him a new daycare because we were given absolutely no notice he was being removed.

Im a little bit more than irritated about this. Can they actually get away with this crap? Is there anything I can do about it?

Thanks for your time,
Daniel

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Why would you even want him to stay at a center where he is regularly getting hurt "because they can't do their job."???????

If my own child had been bitten twice and then got his arm hurt like that we would have given our notice so fast their head would have been spinning.


In my opinion you seem almost as upset by the inconvenience of having to look for a new day care as you are by your child's injuries.

Good luck finding a new daycare. You might try a home daycare this time. We tend to have a better caregiver to child ratio. Lots more hugs, kisses, laptime and snuggles....individual attention for your child. I would look for someone who has been doing daycare in their home for a few years at least.

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Im looking for a specific answer to a question. Im not explaining our train of thought or writing a book here. Nor am I looking for advice on a new daycare.

If you want to help and stay on topic then please respond. If not, dont bother. I dont have time for this.

But to appease your thoughts and to put the questions of any others to rest I will explain:

Kids get bit in daycare. It happens, I understand this. Im not going to remove him if its not an ongoing constant issue. Moreover is the fact of how they treated us here at the end, I dont want other parents to go through the same thing.

After the incident with his hand we immediately started looking for a new daycare. It takes a little bit more time to find a daycare than 3 days of looking and calling around around, especially sine we CAN NOT afford to miss work, and work regular hours. I personally work from 7am to 7pm during the weekdays, and am also regularly on call during the weekend.

I am not at all upset about having to look for a new daycare. You read that post out of the context I meant for it to be read as.

I am UPSET because we are gonna be out of the money I use to feed my son and pay rent, because they gave us no notice and blind sided us. They KNEW we were taking him out, and decided to kick him out because we could make arrangements.

Again I'll ask the question the post was made for. Can we do anything to make sure this doesn't happen to any other people, legal, civil, or otherwise?

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If it where me I would familiarize myself with any daycare contract I signed.
Good luck.

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I won't apologize for the group being so rude to you. I'm a parent who uses this site as reference and have noticed that virtually are of them are like this in virtually every situation. I agree that the group should stay focused on what you asked, not disect your email about your working hours or otherwise because that's not what you were asking. I recommend that you read your contract. What this forum doesn't seem to get time after time is that while it's easy to say you should pull your child, etc, but in the long run, as customers, we work part or full time and have to be at work or we risk losing our jobs or losing our annual raise because of this kind of stupid stuff that this daycare pulled on you.

If I were you, I would read your contract and if they were supposed to give you 2 weeks, then I would file a complaint with licensing. If there is a generic clause about giving less than 2 weeks notice, they have to legally justify that if someone challenges it and I would challenge that via licensing. Good luck and just be glad that your child is out of there. You'll see that things will be much better somewhere else. And before signing up your child in a home daycare, I would highly recommend you read some threads on the daycare provider part of the forum before deciding and get some recommendations from your friends. Ultimately, go with your gut during your tour and turn down any place that won't give you a tour during core learning time - it's vital so you can see how they interact with the children and what they do during the day. Some teachers are real flat and downright not fit to be around kids. Good luck!

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What this forum doesn't seem to get time after time is that while it's easy to say you should pull your child, etc, but in the long run, as customers, we work part or full time and have to be at work or we risk losing our jobs or losing????????????????????????????

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When I read your original post, I felt sorry for you and the situation seemed unfair.

However......when you sarcastically snapped back at the poster who offered some fair advise, I couldn't help wondering if you spoke to the day care staff with that same tone. If you spoke to THEM like that, then I am not surprised they terminated care.

My guess is that they didn't term because an inspector showed up....they termed because you spoke to them like they were stupid. Your last posts show how short tempered and rude you can be to someone who was only trying to offer some advise.

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So you are suggesting he take his child to a place where strangers are allowed to hang around? I am a day care provider. Have been for 25 years. For the safety of the children I NEVER allow strangers into my home and allow them near the children. As a parent of four children, I would never WANT my children to go to a place where their security was so bad.

I used to allow it. One day we found out that the father of one of our little day care girls was a convicted child rapist who had done time in another state. He liked to come and "observe" (yeah right) as you recommend. He seemed like a nice guy at first...business suit, friendly etc. Nobody will ever "observe" again. The parents of the children I have in my care are very grateful that I don't allow complete strangers to come in and be near their children. They are free to come and spend time with THEIR child any time they like. But they are never allowed around other people's kids. There is no need for them to be.

I wish people would stop pushing the "go and watch" thing. If your supervisor at work spent the day staring at you, would you put a foot wrong? Of course not. You probably wouldn't even pop a piece a gum in your mouth as you worked for fear of being accused of slacking off. Doesn't mean you won't spend the work day on facebook when the supervisor is away.

Spending a day with a day care provider is no different. What if she is a horrible person and abuses the kids.....do you think she'd do it in front of you?! Of course not! She will be on her best behavior! Mary Poppins in person!

Parents should check with licensing, ask for references of present and past clients and then watch their kids. Do they come home happy? Do they have friends? Do they talk about day care as if they enjoy it? These are REAL indicators of what the facility is like.

I know I am waaaay off topic here....but I am tired of the scaremongering that gets done to parents. Not all day care providers are satan personified.

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I don't think that a center or most centers have to give you 2 weeks notice...I could be wrong. However, biting does happen at daycare where ever you are and so do small injuries no matter how well we watch them-Especially at his age. If you were termintated on a Tuesday and had just paid your weekly fee that week i would ask for a refund of the unused days. Don't know if you will get it or no but it doesn't hurt to ask. What center is this? I am in Texas as well.

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I respect your opinion. You have a very good case as to why you don't allow it if what you're saying is true. Obviously, tours cannot require a background check before touring, but none of the home daycares or centers around my area perform a background check on customers - in my State, they legally have to reveal if a background check is required, because you have to submit to it in writing. So unless you have a lot of personal information on the person, there's no way you'd know anyway. And tours are generally limited to a 1-2 times anyway - there should have been red flags when this guy didn't have children with him and wanted to tour repeatedly - something doesn't check out with your story at all. If he was convicted, regardless of state, I can guarantee you in every state that he wouldn't be allowed to have any unsupervised visitation with his kids and him showing up without a kid is suspicious to begin with. However, not touring is not an option for centers. Maybe small home daycares can get away with this, but centers could never get away with this. In general, if you polled clients (not providers), I think you'd see that your policy is the minority, not the majority - customers want to tour and see how things are ran during business hours. It's very easy to see if they cannot handle a roudy child or if the teacher is mean or doesn't interact with the children. And every child care web site is wrong then? There are people from state licensing, doctors, providers, etc, etc - all experts in child care - that recommend touring during business hours. I guess if you consider potential clients strangers, that's your opinion - as a customer, I would expect that customers get to tour and will be around my children. Obviously, a teacher is supervising and the tour is limited - it's not an all day thing at all. And your story doesn't check out that you don't allow parents to be around other people's kids - it's 100% guarantee that they'll be around other people's kids when they come to see their kid during the day or for any special events you hold. One of the biggest things wrong with child care is that there aren't enough compliance checks done - I wish they were done every week, not twice per year. You know the saying, "While the cat's away, the mice will play." By what you're saying is that you're good to the kids while parents are there, but completely different when they're not - I would check yourself. I think everyone in every field should be supervised more closely. References from exisiting parents won't work - the provider will only provide references of those who are happy there, never about those that weren't. And existing parents won't say anything negative either for fear that they'll get termed. Maybe not all providers are satan personified, but neither are centers - one thing you can't get in a home based is the checks and balances that come with a center - there's always multiple teachers in the rooms as witnesses to what's going on and can check another teacher and report things. Home centers can just cover things up. I've read most of the threads on here and I can say that I would never choose a home based based on the things that are said here. At least most centers have 2 adult teachers in each classroom which makes things much safer for adult coverage. After all, all the home based have to leave the kids unsupervised in order to use the restroom. As a parent, that makes me cringe to think what can and will happen in that 2 minutes.

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What does the parent handbook/contract say about termination? It is possible that you signed agreeing to the fact that they don't have to give notice and don't have give a reason, in which case, yes, they are well within the right to terminate. Are you sure your son was not instigating behavior previous to the bites? As for the running and falling, that could happen to anyone watching a child, including yourself. Stuff happens, especially with this age. No provider will be able to guarantee that your child will never be hurt by another or hurt themselves. Perhaps re-evaluate your expectations and also, carefully read termination policies before agreeing to a child care arrangement.

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well said.

.....wow, someone mustve missed their coffee this morning. If you are looking for legal advise, then consult a lawyer. We are all here to help each other, there is no reason to be rude. And yes, most centers have a clause on their contract that states they can cancel the contract with no notice, so double check your contract. If the contract says otherwise, then I would be contacting them to discuss. Another thing, I would question what the state investigators results were to the investigation - could it be that they terminated your contract to avoid the investigator digging into the matter more?

best of luck

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I would review the handbook and/or contract. If they are required to provide notice, I would probably contact the state investigator or licensing agent.

If you provided a deposit, you should get it back. If you don't, options are available to recoup it.

I have a clause in my contract that parents must provide a full months notice if they choose to terminate, however, I can term at will without notice. (I've only had to do this once and it didn't come without 3 previous warnings for the same problem.)

Terminations usually never end amicably.

Also...who gave you the notice that your son couldn't come back? Was it the director?

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Read your contract. Most centers require a two-week notice for parents to pull their children, likewise if the center decides to term the child...but centers have a few immediate-termination situations, which are, I think....gross misconduct by the child, absent a certain number of consecutive days without notice, non-payment of fees, and gross or continuous violations of the contract. All centers have the right to terminate a child for any reason, but I think they have to give notice.

I don't think this was grounds for immediate termination, in any state...especially in the manner that they handled it. I would look up the number to your local licensing agency (call city hall if you dont know what it is) and find out for sure.

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It sounds like they just termed you when they knew you were planning on leaving. There had to be tension and most likely words exchanged for them to KNOW you were looking elsewhere.

When clients are leaving after something happens like this they ALL look the same. They walk the same, talk the same, have the same hand gestures, the same facial expressions, the same voice inflections.

So when you showed them that you were leaving with your response they knew THAT was your signal that you were LOOKING for other arrangments.

That's all they needed. They just want to end it now so nothing else happens. They don't want any more discussions or layers of this.

You missing work isn't going to bother them a bit. It's just time to move on.

And twelve hour days PLUS weekend work???????????? That's a lot of hours away from your child every day. I hope your child is just in child care eight or nine max a day. If he's in really long hours it would explain almost everything you wrote about his experience.

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The hand injury was probably nobody's fault. Those things just happen, in any setting, and will happen when he's with you.

But, giving no notice is pretty lousy!!! Even a parent who is unhappy with the daycare is expected to give a two week's notice. I'd be very angry at them for pulling a stunt like that. That seems very unfair. I don't know what you can do legally. But, I do think you should have been given a two week notice, as I assume you were planning to do with them.

I do hope you find someone quickly, even if it's just temporary.

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What you can do is make a complaint to your licensing department. Whether it will be investigated or not is something I cannot answer but I do know that every complaint about a center or home is kept on file where I live. I would advise you to thouroughly read your contract and find out what it says about termination by the center and what they must do in order to term you. If your contract says they can term for whatever they feel is warranted, then it would be pointless for you to pursue it because you agreed to those terms. If it says they are required to give you notice and they didn't, then you could possibly hold them accountable by taking them to small claims court.

However, I must caution you that in situations like this it is going to be your word against theirs and the only facts the judge will probably look at are written documentation which I am betting they will have. I suggest that you simply move on and find a new child care provider, whether it be a home based or center provider is your call but try to find one that you can have an open line of communication with so in tough or sticky situations you both will feel respected and listened to.

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