I’m bewildered and upset right now.
About an hour ago, I checked my email, and found an astonishing message from Noah’s school. In a nutshell, it said that Ms L, the lead teacher in Noah’s classroom, would not be coming back to work there any more.
All the details that the email provided were:
Ms L has been a great teacher and cares for the children. However, we need
our staff to teach children while embracing the Montessori Principles,
including patience and respect.We love your children and we want the best for them, so please trust us and work with us by showing your support.
Oh yeah, and the timestamp on the email was at most 10 minutes after I picked Noah up for his doctor’s appointment. I noticed that Ms L wasn’t in the room, but I figured she was on her break. No one said anything to suggest otherwise.
I know that for legal reasons they shouldn’t get into a lot of detail about why they fired her with no notice. Clearly, Something Happened. But FRIDAY is the last day of one of the other teachers in the classroom, and the third and final teacher only started full time during Noah’s first week! And Ms N, who leaves on Friday, is getting a photo album with notes from all the parents.
Noah loves Ms L.
She was the first person there in the morning, and probably 2 days/week, Noah had her all to himself for somewhere between 15-45 minutes. The other 3 days/week, he shared her attention with 1 other little boy during that time.
Almost every morning, she told me a cute story about what Noah did the day before. Maybe half the stories involved things like "he wouldn’t take his bottle from the other teachers and would only eat when I fed him" or "he saw me pick up another baby and he started to cry." I saw him give her the sweet drooly kisses he gives us, and he always got excited when she handed him a toy in the morning. "That’s his favorite."
I don’t want to micromanage the school’s personnel issues. I don’t.
I’m even almost willing to accept that whatever happened, firing Ms L on the spot was the only recourse the school felt like they had. But it seems insane and excessive in the vacuum of information that I have.
And the "please just trust & support us," from the email sounds too much like "trust me, I’m a doctor." I need more information. Why did 3 long-term staffers leave in less than 3 months? The one who left after Noah’s first week had worked there 11 years! What are we doing to address staff retention? Why can’t we even say goodbye?
WHO WILL BE TAKING CARE OF MY BABY TOMORROW FUCKING MORNING?
I trust(ed?) Ms L. I know that she cared for Noah, she knew him, his personality. And she’s been in training as a Montessori infant teacher for a number of years. The other teacher who has been there as long as Noah is a very nice woman. I know she cares about Noah and is sweet with him. But she doesn’t have the education and training that Ms L does. And I don’t know who is replacing Ms N.
My point is that we’re paying a premium for the quality of care promised by this school, and I’m afraid we’re not going to get it. Starting tomorrow. TOMORROW!!! If we’re getting "ordinary" care for Noah, I’d prefer to pay "ordinary" rates.
I also really fucking hate that we didn’t even get to say goodbye.
how did it go this morning? i think you should just talk to the management and they might well address all of your concerns. just because they don’t want to put stuff in an email doesn’t mean they won’t discuss it with you if you call.
maybe part of the problem had to do with those “cute” stories (which actually sound the opposite of cute to me, they sound like a big red flag). it sounds to me like she was encouraging noah to like her the best and liked it when he wouldn’t respond to other teachers. i don’t know much about montessori principles, but i suspect currying this type of attachment to one teacher over the others would run counter to those principles. isn’t one of the principles that the kids should learn to relate to and interact with ALL people, not just their favorites?
I agree with Jen (in MD) I thought those stories were big red flags, too. It’s one thing to tell you that Noah is attached to her, another thing to subtly let you know that Noah preferrs her to others.
I can tell you from my 10 years of experience in daycare/preschool that firing a teacher on the spot is a HUGE deal, usually involving some sort of egregious neglect or abuse, or some long-term problem that she had been warned about in the past and committed one time too many. (unless you’re a catholic school, in which case you can fire people on the spot for having IVF)Especially since they mentioned expecting their staff to treat the children with patience and respect. That seems like a quite telling clue that what happened was beyond the pale. Naturally the school wouldn’t want to say that over the email — for reasons of Ms. L’s privacy as well as not wanting parents to know that something bad could happen at their school.
I would take your (very legitimate) concerns to the head of the school. I wouldn’t try to talk about it over the phone, but rather talk to the director in person. You have a right to be concerned about the high turnover and the experience of the staff — especially since you’re paying for that experience.
This is sucky Liza. I hope you can get some resolution…bad situation.
Oh, and the teacher who left right after Noah started might have left BECAUSE of Ms. L. If there were problems with Ms L and the other teacher felt that the administration wasn’t handling them strongly enough, she might have gotten fed up and upset and gone to another school rather than continue to work with Ms. L.
Or not.
You just have to see what the director says…
Wow… That’s scarry.
Wow, those were red flags for me, too, and I’m not even a parent!
I think talking to the director about your concerns is an excellent idea.