I am a teacher at a FABULOUS reggio-inspired preschool. I mean really it is the best school in the state (I know I have a bias from working there, but truly, it really is). We have amazing ratios (6 teachers to 20 kids), have a very children's-interest-play-based approach, etc. Very loving towards kids, very natural (wooden toys, handmade toys, etc). Serve vegetarian hot lunches, I could go on and on about how great we are, but anyway:

Anyway, we are in VT so we will absolutely take children who are vaxed and who are not and they can use ANY reason they want for not vaxing (religious, moral, ethical, etc. etc.) and we are VERY understanding and in NO WAY tell the parents what to do regarding vaxes. In fact, we hand out exemption forms right with our paperwork so they don't have to go get one themselves.

Anyway, we currently have a parent who is a fourth year medical student and is so completely pro-vax it's not even funny. We are friends on facebook and when I once posted something about delaying ds's vaxes (this was when he was first born and i wasn't sure exaclty how we were gonna go about his vax schedule but leaning towards delaying and being very selective) she sent me a letter telling me I better educate myself because by not vaxing my son he will probably die, i will be hurting other children etc etc. I wrote back to her (and of course, being her son's teacher I had to be as nice, polite and professional as possible) and explained that I have been doing a TON of research on the various diseases and I have different feelings about each one in terms of if i feel the need to vax my ds for it and when/what age etc.
Oh, and this all happend like over a year ago.

Fast forward to yesterday, this parent asked to come speak to us at our most recent staff meeting. We are currently undergoing reaccredidation with NAEYC and one of our requirements is to have a "health" coordinator person--someone we can go to to ask questions such as "how much tylenol should a four year old have" or "what is the best way to keep illness at bay" type stuff. Not that we really need this, but NAEYC has a bunch of new lame rules...Anyway, she basically came to this meeting to talk about health but turned it into a HUGE full-blown scare-tactic lecture on how if we keep taking children at our center who do not vax we are putting everyone at risk. She said that we should force parents to sign a contract that tells them they acknowledge that other children could catch diseases from their children and die. (seriously she said all this) AND THEN she goes to to lecture all the teachers because NONE of us have the flu shot or have any intention on getting it. SHe called us irresponsible and putting children's lives in jeaopardy.

Now, let me also tell you that I was not at this staff meeting. So i heard all of this second hand. But i KNOW that she went into it fully knowing that MY son is not fully vaxed (not even close, he's only had 3 total vaxes ever) She doesn't know the stats on the other kids (obviously because of confidentiality) but it is about the 50% mark that are completely vaxed on schedule. Most are on a delayed/selective and a few get none at all. We also have another teacher who does no vaxes with her ds.

I am SO annoyed/furious that she would do this. I havn't discussed it with my director yet and i do not think that my director would take her advice about this at all so i'm not really worried per say. As I said before we are accepting of all children vaxed or not and we (as a staff) completely believe it is a parent/doctor discussion/choice and that it is not the right of a preschool to force parents to vax or sign innappropriate contracts.

I hope this makes sense, i'm totally annoyed by the whole thing but here are my questions/concerns:

1. I want to give my other staff members information about the diseases/vaxs and how relevent the diseases even are, the nastiness that is in some of the vax's etc. Some of them do not even have children so they might not have any info on the subject either way (and i dont' want that scaremongering to be all the got). I also do not want to overload them with info, so maybe a few links?

2. I feel like i want to "respond" to this parent, but at the same time i don't know if i should or what i would say. Obviously I need to be as professional as possible if i do approach it. But I also wasn't at the staff meeting. AT the same time, even though i wasn't there, she knows that i would be told about what happened and ughhh i just don't know where to go from here.

Honestly, I would not do or say anything to anyone right away. Just let it ride and see how it plays out. This could have been her one moment of fame and if the director is not going to take heed, then I would wait and see.

It just reminds me of situations where I have been in like this and they become full on wars. Unless the other teachers request information or start to ask you questions, I personally believe giving them information unsolicited is not exactly right. You might want to put a feeler out there to see if they might want it, but I wouldn't just show up with it.

As for the parent, if she is that adamant and rude, nothing you say will get her to view the world differently. If she is on facebook, you could post links and see if she follows them on her own, but it just seems like you would be beating your head against a wall.

That really stinks! I agree with anewmama, I would just lie low and put feelers out, wait and see what happens.

I agree with the idea to lay low for a bit and see what comes of this. I can't understand why the heck she would send her child to a school that she seems to think is full of children that will cause hers to become sick and die. :scratch One would think that if a person was so completely sure of this, they would want to take their child and run for the hills, wouldn't they? :lol

She said that we should force parents to sign a contract that tells them they acknowledge that other children could catch diseases from their children and die.

I'd think that a person who is so pro-vax at LEAST would believe that vax'd kids are protected:eyesroll. But no and yet she is still for it...go figure...

She's not even a doctor. She's a medical school student.

:eyesroll

Who asked her to speak at the staff meeting? Or did she initiate that? She could actually get in big trouble because she is not a practicing, licensed doctor yet and she is giving medical advice.

And :yeah: to the comments above, that if she thinks that all of the other kids in this school are unvaxed disease vectors, why in the world is she sending her son to this school? I really question her judgment on that.

On another note, the your school sounds amazing, holly!!

Thank you so much for your replies! I already feel better just reading them and knowing i'm not a freak who is ruining my sons chance at living (lol).

I agree that for now I will lay low. I'm gonna see if my director talks to me about it when we go over what I missed at the meeting.

Also, my co-workers told me that after she went out on her crazy tangent the director kind of paused for an awkward moment and then said, "so um yah okay, i guess we are done." :thumb which makes me think she probably thought she was just as crazy as I thought.

As for why I wanted to find out some good links/info whatever for my coworkers is mainly just because I am also REALLY good friends with some of them and I just wanted to be able to be show them some stuff. They have honestly told me that they believe it should be a parents choice AND that they have no idea anything about them and would be interested in learning more.

As for why she has her kid there and is not running for the hills (hehe) It was her husbands decision to get him into our school. He is also a teacher and i'm pretty sure he was amazed/blown away about how great we are as teachers/a school (sorry to brag haha) Also, she and her dh do NOT always see eye-to-eye on stuff (we know this because they tend to overshare personal stuff at times).

Anyway, thank you guys for the support. It is really hard when people start bashing in an attacking and scare-tacticy kind of way. It was really hard to hear about it today from my co-worker and i wanted to smash my head into a wall! lol.

It sounds to me like this lady has another problem in her own life... and this just happens to be how she is dealing with it. My own 2 cents.

You got a bunch of good advice here.

If you want to feel free about posting on your Facebook regarding your thoughts about vaccines, maybe you should quietly de-friend her or expect more grief. :shrug

Another update. I had a meeting with my director. Told her that i overheard the vax lecture our staff was given by a parent. I also told her that i personally feel defensive about it. I told her a little bit about our background with vaxing (very selective/delayed). And when I was done she said, "Don't worry, i honestly don't even believe vax's are safe!":joy: Guess I have nothing to worry about and still think I work at the world's best preschool :)