This was odd, right? (playdate) - Page 2

[TiredX2]

Moved to Learning at School

[zoebird]

here is what i figure happened at some level.

since the school is normally open, i assume that the school was/is closed for some reason--in service or what have you. i also assume that it is a full-day childcare/preschool, where most of the parents work full time.

thus, one parent was deciding to offer a service to other parents to provide what the school couldn't--which is essentially safe childcare. she sent a notice through the school to ask for permissions as necessary.

certainly, i feel that you are within your rights to see if the place is child-friendly, appropriate, and so on. i would do the same under this circumstance.

but i am also the sort of person to offer this to people. for example, in running the holistic health center, i've offered free child care to my yoga teachers who have children. they are welcome to bring their child to my house while they teach. i live about 10 minutes walk from the studio, and the teacher would leave the child here about 1.5 hrs total (if teaching one class).

so, i could see myself writing a note to my DS's kindy inviting all of the children to come over to our place when the kindy might be normally opened, but closed that day, to help out the parents or just so that my son has playmates or whatever.

I would not be offended by someone asking to see my place, meet us, or whatever, and i would not be offended if they declined the offer.

[Juvysen]

Originally Posted by jeanine123

Then it needs to be done after school hours, not during school hours. Stressful announcement or not, I am not paying to have my child taken to another parent's house and left there unsupervised by the teachers whose salary I am paying and who my child knows. I am not paying for them to dump my child on someone else so they can take care of administrative work during school hours.

when I worked at the daycare, I got stuck coming back at closing time all the time for meetings. They didn't hold those kinds of things DURING school hours...

[swd12422]

I'm with everyone else who thinks this doesn't seem quite right. If it were b/c the teacher was leaving, then it's up to the administration to work that out after the kids are gone. UNLESS.... The teacher just wanted an afternoon off (to get things in order, write her resignation, go on an interview, whatever, basically stuff she should do on her own time) and coordinated with the mom to do it. Either way, I'd be tempted to ask for a refund for the afternoon. My kid wasn't at the school, the staff wasn't there, why should they get paid? Realistically, I know that's a stretch, but it irks me when it feels like people are taking advantage. And that's what this sounds like to me.

[GuildJenn]

Originally Posted by zoebird

here is what i figure happened at some level.

since the school is normally open, i assume that the school was/is closed for some reason--in service or what have you. i also assume that it is a full-day childcare/preschool, where most of the parents work full time.

thus, one parent was deciding to offer a service to other parents to provide what the school couldn't--which is essentially safe childcare. she sent a notice through the school to ask for permissions as necessary.

certainly, i feel that you are within your rights to see if the place is child-friendly, appropriate, and so on. i would do the same under this circumstance.

but i am also the sort of person to offer this to people. for example, in running the holistic health center, i've offered free child care to my yoga teachers who have children. they are welcome to bring their child to my house while they teach. i live about 10 minutes walk from the studio, and the teacher would leave the child here about 1.5 hrs total (if teaching one class).

so, i could see myself writing a note to my DS's kindy inviting all of the children to come over to our place when the kindy might be normally opened, but closed that day, to help out the parents or just so that my son has playmates or whatever.

I would not be offended by someone asking to see my place, meet us, or whatever, and i would not be offended if they declined the offer.

Well if this were my school, the in service days would have been listed way in advance and not sprung on parents the night before.

If it was for the announcement, that also was inappropriate. Meetings should be held outside of hours.

It is simply not okay to dump the kids on a parent and some teenagers. Yes, they asked permission - the NIGHT BEFORE. That does not give parents time to really reflect or to make good decisions.

I was thinking about this on the drive home. This would be a dealbreaker for me with the preschool.

[Qestia]

No, the school was open for the younger classes. The school does close at 4:30 once a month for teacher inservices but this was not one of those days.

[Momily]

OK, speaking as a preschool administrator, I think that's bizarre, and quite possibly illegal --

I should note that we've taken kids to other parents houses. We do a homes unit and one year they took field trips to several homes, and also to a college dorm and an independent living program for seniors. They took pictures and made books and compared and contrasted the 3. But the teachers were there every minute. In fact, we took extra teachers so we'd have lots of hands to hold. The kids were closely supervised and within legal ratios (here you can't have a class of kids alone in a room with just one teacher, let alone in a private home -- that's crazy!)

My son's preschool used to do something where they took all the teachers out to lunch for Christmas and had parents come in and cover. They put it on the yearly calendar so you knew months in advance, had many more parents cover than they had teachers (because managing groups of kids you don't know well is hard), had strict policies about no one adult ever being alone with a child etc . . . I always hesitated about sending him that day, and would have taken off work but it turned out that at least one of my close friends chose to volunteer. If I was slightly uncomfortable with that what you describe is 100 time worse.

[eepster]

That is very very strange.

I find it very strange that the mom offered to do it. If she wanted to do something social she could have invited the kids over after school and the moms/dads could have had tea and coffee (a couple of moms at DS's preschool did this and it was very nice.)

I think agreeing to it was very poor judgement on the schools part. Since it is happening during school hours basic mandated childcare standards should be maintained. Though this varies state to state, 1 adult (I'm assuming when you say older neighborhood kids you aren't talking about 18 yo) to 10 students under 5 yo is probably unacceptable. I doubt her house was inspected by the health department or fire marshal. Is she a licence childcare provider? Just leaving students in the care of an unlicensed person in a private residence really seems like it would be illegal.

[sapphire_chan]

To answer your dh's question, when a kid can be trusted to call for help and is old enough to be trusted to leave a bad situation and find a safe spot to wait if it isn't safe to call.

As for the random preschool playdate, W. T. F.???? Did this parent get a background check? Did any of the other parents even ask?

The only way this isn't totally freaking creepy would be if the parent had been a teacher at the school before having her kid. But even then, it's still creepy that the director wouldn't explain that.

[sapphire_chan]

Originally Posted by Momily

OK, speaking as a preschool administrator, I think that's bizarre, and quite possibly illegal --

I should note that we've taken kids to other parents houses. We do a homes unit and one year they took field trips to several homes, and also to a college dorm and an independent living program for seniors. They took pictures and made books and compared and contrasted the 3. But the teachers were there every minute. In fact, we took extra teachers so we'd have lots of hands to hold. The kids were closely supervised and within legal ratios (here you can't have a class of kids alone in a room with just one teacher, let alone in a private home -- that's crazy!)

See, now that sounds reasonable... and tons of fun!

[Emmeline II]

Weird.

[Tummy]

Beyond bazaar to me!

I do want to know,
*What exactly did the permission slip that the parents had to sign say?

*What activities did the children participate in?

*What exactly was the reason given, by the center, for this out of school 'playdate'?

*Why in the world would the center call another parent to pressure them into having a child go?!?!

*The parent who hosted this event, who is she to the center? Just another parent or relative to a staff member?


None of it makes sense to me.

One thing that strikes me in a really bad way is... If I am paying any child care center to teach my child during the day, at what point do they have the right to remove my child from school for a 'playdate' at another persons home?!?!?

Every time I have ever had to sign a permission slip for my child to leave the school with the rest of his/her classmates the teachers WERE ALWAYS PRESENT with the children.

It is the responsibility of the TEACHERS to care for your children while at their facility, if they leave the facility on any sort of 'field trip', your child's well being is still the responsibility of the center/teacher!!!

Am I correct in understanding that the children from the center were walked over to another parents home, left there for X amount of time and then walked back, all the while with NO ONE from the center with the children!?!?!
~That all seems to be a huge liability to me. What child care center would allow the children to leave, {with our with out parent permission} and NOT BE THERE WITH THE CHILDREN TO CARE FOR THEM.

It is even more bazaar that no other parent seems to have been concerned about this, however you may not be the only one. There very well may be other parents having this exact conversation with someone they trust, but are not comfortable bring it up with the center/teacher.

I would speak with the center staff and the other parents about this. It just does not add up to me, very strange indeed!

[northwoods1995]

I agree it seems very odd. I would not have been comfortable with that.