Hellobee Boards

Have you talked to the director as to why there is so much turnover and what they're planning on doing about it?

We have a bit of turnover with the caretakers (essentially teacher assistants), but it's usually because they're young, going to school, and end up getting full time teaching positions within a school district. So those are far less concerning to me than say the day care treating teachers like crap, not paying them well, and them finding a different day care to work.

We dealt with something similar and we talked to the director more because things were slipping through the cracks will all the "floaters" and "subs" and "new teachers" . In the end we told them that was their business issue and they needed to describe to use their transition policy for when a teacher leaves/comes. I dont think it totally helped, but forcing them to explain to us the process maybe helped some.

We also were "those parents" that just wrote everything down 100 times just to try to help make sure our kid got what she needed.

I know the feeling but after a couple years (and finding out that it was very common in our area), I sort of gave up getting upset about it. My LO has been attending her daycare for almost 2.5 years now and I believe she's lost 8 or 9 teachers (including the head teacher in two rooms), 3 directors, and 3 assistant directors. In fact, the only people who are still there from when we first started are the owner, the music teacher, and a single teacher from the infant room (who is now the newest assistant director).

We've had several parent meetings about this and there was always a "reason" that the teachers left but realistically in our case, I think the daycare just had growing pains at the beginning (when we started, it was only a year old). Luckily they seem to have sorted it out and these days, the teachers generally leave because they are young and want to start a grad program, or else because their boyfriend is moving to a new city, or because they want to stay at home with their own baby, and so on.

We really loved one of the teachers who left early on and so we contacted her afterwards and she ended up becoming our babysitter. I know a couple other families left the daycare and hired one of the other former teachers as a nanny.

Edited to add: Just saw your other post and that really stinks about them being treated badly. We do not have that situation but we did in the past and that is how some of them ended up becoming nannies. Actually, there have been many families who left to do nanny-shares instead so maybe that could be an option if other daycares are full.

@Dahlia: could you find an in-home?

@Dahlia: To me, its not really possible to force a business discussion unless you're willing to leave and let them loose your business. But if its affecting the care of you child, you have every right to a detailed conversation.

@Dahlia: Can you mention what you just said to the director - that if that teacher leaves, you'll feel like you have to start looking elsewhere? The bad part of that is that ultimatums usually only work if you're willing to follow through, which is sounds like would be hard for you. But the good part would be that maybe she'd have more reason to treat that teacher well?