Olney Children in the Shoe

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe any of you want to send your children back.

Doing a count on the way back inside is very, very basic. There’s absolutely no excuse for leaving a kid outside. Having a kid sneak out from the classroom or the playground while everyone is there is much more understandable. But leaving them through a transition means the staff really don't care and aren’t trying.

Who said they didn’t do a head count? Who said the child didn’t sneak out when they were outside on the playground? You are literally just making things up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every now and then I hear about a center that left a child outside. It does happen, though ideally it should not. I've never seen it reported in the news.

Are those children found wandering around the surrounding neighborhood by residents who then call the police?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe any of you want to send your children back.

Doing a count on the way back inside is very, very basic. There’s absolutely no excuse for leaving a kid outside. Having a kid sneak out from the classroom or the playground while everyone is there is much more understandable. But leaving them through a transition means the staff really don't care and aren’t trying.

Who said they didn’t do a head count? Who said the child didn’t sneak out when they were outside on the playground? You are literally just making things up.

Ok. Let’s say the child escaped while everyone was still outside. How did they not notice a child scaling a fence??? Either scenario makes it obvious they are not paying attention and not doing their job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe any of you want to send your children back.

Doing a count on the way back inside is very, very basic. There’s absolutely no excuse for leaving a kid outside. Having a kid sneak out from the classroom or the playground while everyone is there is much more understandable. But leaving them through a transition means the staff really don't care and aren’t trying.

Who said they didn’t do a head count? Who said the child didn’t sneak out when they were outside on the playground? You are literally just making things up.

They didn’t do a headcount, but I was told that the child hid until his class had gone in and only the scaled the fence.

[Anonymous]

They did do a headcount outside, but then no teacher took the back of the line, little Ramona Quimby ran off and hid because she was upset, and then they didn't count again inside. It was during naptime so all the blinds were down in the other classrooms.

Like a lot of rare but scary incidents, a lot of different things line up like a perfect storm, and it's not that the kid is a monster or the teachers are uncaring witches or those other kids napping with the blinds down are a bunch of lazy slackers. But there's a lot of room for everyone to do better.

[Anonymous]

SMH at half of these...basically like saying "kid is still alive and is a deviant therefore teachers not to blame for losing him/her"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SMH at half of these...basically like saying "kid is still alive and is a deviant therefore teachers not to blame for losing him/her"

And if they dealt with the at-fault teacher we should just shut it all down forever?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Why are they closing 2 weeks for this? I read on facebook that some of the kids were being transferred to Bethesda locations.

This is the question the community is asking (as well as some of our local elected officials).

The state’s letter is written in a way to convey the most negligence, omitting the mitigating factors. This was a preK child who was hiding on the playground and scaled a 6 foot fence. Obviously you cannot excuse this entirely, but it was a child who is of an age to know better and who was intent on mischief. It’s hard to understand how an isolated incident like this (to our knowledge the only time in the center’s history) rises to the level of an emergency situation that warrants a shut down. None of our children are in any danger.

I get this is an anonymous board but why are people being so cagey about where they’re getting this information from? Who is the community and what community leaders? I have not seen anything in any of the larger Olney groups or Parent groups. So I question where this information is coming from.

The Shoe community and the elected officials we have reached out to. I don’t think the state anticipated the backlash they are receiving from the working parents of 150 children were left without care and told at 4 pm Tuesday after an isolated incident

I mean those 149 parents are being punished for a prek kid who hid and then climbed a *six foot fence* and caused chaos. I would be angry too.

I actually feel.bad for the staff who has to look after this type of child.

It’s infuriating. It happened 9 days prior to the closure and things had been business as usual. Then they showed up saying our children were in “danger.” It’s such a wonderful school and community and this sucks for everyone.

First of all, I have children who go to this center and desperately need them to reopen. However, I cannot believe people on this forum are blaming a 4- or 5-year old child for this. There are no "mitigating factors" and it does not matter whether the child "should have known better"--it is 100 percent the responsibility of a daycare to ensure the safety of the children in its care. These arguments have no bearing a hearing on whether the Shoe should have the suspension lifted. The only thing that matters is that they have put the policies in place to prevent this from happening again (which should have been in place in the first place).

Agreed. Shocked by the responses here and how many parents are chomping at the bit to return their children to a facility that literally lost a child, who--by sheer luck--did not suffer worse consequences (the options are all grim). The teachers lost a kid, FFS. It doesn't matter if he/she was 4 or 5 or a good climber. It is their responsibility to keep all the students safe and do the bare minimum of their jobs like a head count. Having backup and contingency plans is part of parenting.

Well to be fair it's not an uncommon situation. There are plenty of daycare centers who have a kid wander off and been found by passersby.

[Anonymous]

This child is roughly 3 months out from kindergarten. I don’t think anyone is absolving the teachers or school of blame, but something tells me the response here would be different if it happened 3 months from now at a local public school (which it does, from time to time). Never heard of them being shut down or categorized as an imminent threat to safety.

[Anonymous]

I am also surprised that people are so eager to send their kids back. Losing a kid is a really big deal. At my children's daycare center they had tons of cameras installed all over the place, and the director's office had a ton of monitors in it for each camera. She would say hi to you before you walked in because she was monitoring the cameras so closely. I think its entirely appropriate that they were shut down to investigate. I wouldn't be surprised if they lose many children as a result of this incident, and they deserve to.

[Anonymous]

They must have reopened or are gearing up to reopen because there are a lot of cars in the parking lot.

[Anonymous]

It is automatic for a center to be shut down if they lose a child. No exceptions. They will have to present a reopening plan showing how they will prevent this from happening again. Sometimes that takes 2 weeks, sometimes it takes 6.

https://www.checkccmd.org/FacilityDetail.aspx?ft=&fn=Children%20in%20the%20shoe&sn=&z=&c=&co=&fi=207853

Surprised this info is already up as the Office of Child Care is not fast in my experience.

[Anonymous]

This is horrible! If all of it is true, of course. My child would never go back there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am also surprised that people are so eager to send their kids back. Losing a kid is a really big deal. At my children's daycare center they had tons of cameras installed all over the place, and the director's office had a ton of monitors in it for each camera. She would say hi to you before you walked in because she was monitoring the cameras so closely. I think its entirely appropriate that they were shut down to investigate. I wouldn't be surprised if they lose many children as a result of this incident, and they deserve to.

They didn't "lose a kid" - a problematic child hid when he should have gone back inside and then scaled a 6 foot fence when everybody went inside to escape. Parents who want it to re-open know their children don't have special needs and therefore have been, and would be, perfectly fine there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am also surprised that people are so eager to send their kids back. Losing a kid is a really big deal. At my children's daycare center they had tons of cameras installed all over the place, and the director's office had a ton of monitors in it for each camera. She would say hi to you before you walked in because she was monitoring the cameras so closely. I think its entirely appropriate that they were shut down to investigate. I wouldn't be surprised if they lose many children as a result of this incident, and they deserve to.

They didn't "lose a kid" - a problematic child hid when he should have gone back inside and then scaled a 6 foot fence when everybody went inside to escape. Parents who want it to re-open know their children don't have special needs and therefore have been, and would be, perfectly fine there.

They lost a kid. You can defend it all you want but they literally lost a kid.

The OCC website cites several other very recent violations as well, including a classroom without a qualified teacher.