Your husband is a doctor, a plastic surgeon to be exact, you work in his office.You send your child to one of the high end pre-schools in Northern NJ because you want the best in early education.
Your child recently was diagnosed with a hairline fracture in his foot which he got at the school. The director of the Goddard school told you he fell. I heard from one of the staff what really happened was one of the part time staff, a high school student, did not realize your child's foot was caught under the wheel of a multiple stroller and she repeatedly ran over it thinking it was stuck. I can't say for certain if it's true as it is just heresay but I thought I would post it here in case someone from the child's family sees it so they can investigate further.
I have no other way of getting in touch with you so I hope you or someone you knows sees this here. Again I can't say 100 percent if this is true or not but this is what I heard from my friend who is a teacher there and I can't see why she would bother to lie to me.
I had a HORRIBLE experience when I worked in daycare years ago. We had a glider in the infant room and I was sitting backwards on it (knees on the seat, face towards the back of the glider instead of forward). I was being careless and absent-minded, talking to a coworker and while I was rocking it, I managed to lift it up off the ground. To my horror, it landed on the foot of a 8 month old baby. Not only the chair's weight, but mine too. THANK GOD nothing was broken. I can't imagine HOW I didn't break every bone in his little foot but I didn't. FORTUNATELY FORTUNATELY FORTUNATELY his mother absolutely adored me, he BEYOND adored me and I babysat for them regularly so even though she was less than happy to hear what happened, she didn't freak out. I really thought it was over me in the childcare field and figured I deserved it. I was SO upset and there was no excuse for it happening. I was being gabby and not paying attention.
ReplyDeleteMy point is, the first thing I did was call his mother to tell her. Even if I wasn't close with her, that was what we did if there was an injury during the day. I couldn't imagine the director or any of the caregivers and teachers actually lying about it and not taking responsibility for what happened.
I find it odd that she knows the dad is a plastic surgeon and the mom works in his office yet this person has no way of contacting them. Hmmmm....seems they would be listed in the phone book.
ReplyDeleteAcoording to my friend, the girl who did it was quite upset at her carelessness and wanted to tell the parents right away but the director advised her against it saying the parents would demand she be fired and he liked her and didn't want to see her lose her job.
ReplyDeleteFired or not, she had an obligation to tell the truth. It was an accident, not negligence or done purposefully. She needs to call the local department of child welfare and let them know she is in danger of losing her job and what she did. Who knows what else this shady preschool has hidden from it's parents.
ReplyDeleteSince I am in the child care business and my friend is a teacher at a pre-school we talk shop all the time. The details of the parents jobs came up during the course of the story my friend related to me. I am NOT the teacher at the school, nor do I work there at all so I don't have access to family information Since the entire staff was told to support the story about the child falling, my friend is afraid to contact the parents herself. She can't afford to lose her job as she has a family of her own to support although she is now looking for a new position.
ReplyDeleteMy point in posting was to get the word out there in hopes that someone involved with his child or his family will investigate these allegations further and to let people know that paying to send their kids to a swanky, expensive facility that does not call itself a daycare doesn't ensure quality. Some still hire inexperienced high school students at a low wage, just like the typical daycare down the block.
I really can't blame the kid in this. She's a high school student that made an honest, careless mistake and is afraid. She is also being influenced by a shady creep of a character who owns/runs the school. I am currently trying to figure out if I should report this and to what agency. Ethically this is all wrong but I'm not sure if there is any criminality involved here. Also, since I heard this from a third party I'm not sure if i can be held liable for damages against the school should any part of my friends statement be false, although I can i can't see what could be gained by her lying about this to me.
ReplyDeleteOP, Aren't you an obligated reporter since you run a daycare? Make sure you cover your own butt.
ReplyDeleteThere's probably not a criminal case against the girl who accidentally did this. (Although she will probably think twice about forcefully doing anything in close proximity to toddlers ever again. I'm sure she feels just terrible.) There is typically not a legal case against somebody for a simple accident unless the accident was so stupid as to come under the category of negligence (as in leaving a baby in a van all day long, or taking a nap while children in your care drown in a pool, etc.)
ReplyDeleteLike in Jacqui's accident, the parents should have been told IMMEDIATELY. How incredibly sad that their child is so hurt and they have no idea what actually happened to him. And how sad that they pay all of this money and don't realize thay have their child in a school run by a person of questionable ethics. For that alone I would want to know so that I could remove my child at once and place him in the care of somebody like Jacqui and her former daycare center boss.
Sure the parents are going to be mad that their child's foot was broken because the worker was careless. It's human nature because they love their child and he is in pain. And the school needs to be responsible for all of his medical bills. But it's the RIGHT thing to do. There would have been far less of an issue for the daycare if they had simply told the truth up front and paid the child's bills, as common decency dictates.
If it had been my child would be upset because of my child's pain. But I would have been a lot less unhappy if the school owners had owned up to the accident and apologized. I would probably have let him go back to the school when he had recovered because this was an accident unlikely to ever recur. Accidents sometimes just happen. Lies and cover ups do not. I would never want my child in the school again if the owners lied to me.
Now the authorities NEED to be notified. OP, please do this. It can be done anonymously. The agency that investigates will be in contact with the parents, so you will be sure they find out. Or just make an anopnymous call to dad's office and tell him what you know about his child's injury. Sorry OP, but this one is on you and yo friend now. Please do the right thing.
Is this the Goddard in Mahwah?
ReplyDeleteBut . . . OP, if the parents see this, aren't they going to demand the person be fired anyway? How are you and your friend preventing this from happening by not contacting the parents directly?
ReplyDeleteOP if you run or work in a daycare then you should know the number to state. Turn them in. Lying in unacceptable.
ReplyDeleteI will say though that a hairline fracture/stress fracture CAN be caused by falling. That's how I ended up with a stress fracture in my foot.
So the daycare director is requiring the young lady (and the rest of the facility staff) to lie about the incident...so the parents won't get upset? And since when does a parent have the right to fire anybody that they don't employ? The director of the center is the only one at fault here, IMHO. He chose to lie to the parents and to require his employees to lie under a thinly-veiled threat of being fired...nice
ReplyDeleteDefinitely something fishy going on with that center... Why would the director claim to care about inexperienced high school student's job, when his entire facility could have some serious issues for REQUIRING his EMPLOYEES to lie?
Accidents happen and the parents should definitely know what actually happened, but I'm thinkin' maybe some agency should be looking into this guy either way...
Give me more info, I will call the parents anonymously myself. They have a right to know and you have no idea if they will ever see this website. What would you do if it were your child? If anyone has more information on this case, at least call the parents and direct them to this website.
ReplyDeleteIf she gets fired, I hope she gets a lawyer.
confused, you are an idiot obviously she does not want to get involved, sheesh
ReplyDeleteShe got involved when she wrote this post.
ReplyDeleteRight?
Anonymously involved.
ReplyDeleteCan you give the name of the area? It can be posted on the craigslist area.
ReplyDeleteI once helped out a a daycare in Ann Arbor- it was a trial- and saw children being rough-handled to the point of apparent bruising. The only thing that came out of it was me declining a job offer and a parent switching to another daycare. And being unemployed for 4 months. That's when I said : no more childcare.all I can say is gretchens house sucks. They tried to convince me what I saw was "misinterpreted". Found out recently that there was another investigation that some month for odd bruising and mine fell hot on its heels. Nothing came from that.
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly why I quit my job and stayed home with my nieces and nephews. I get paid a lot less, but I know they are in a loving, safe environment. I know accidents happen and if anything happens, I tell my sis immediately (but thankfully nothing too bad has happened), but I'm more upset about the cover up.
ReplyDeleteI just posted on craigslist. Hopefully the parents or someone who knows the parents will see this or that.
ReplyDeleteI don't own or run my own daycare, I am a professional, full time nanny who used to work with this teacher back when we were younger and in college. We kept in touch and meet about twice a month for dinner. She's not my best friend in the whole world.
ReplyDeleteThe school is not in Mahwah, I believe it's in Sussex county, I think perhaps Randolph or Jefferson because that's where my friend lives, although I could be wrong about the exact town. To be truthful, we were chatting about different things that happen at work and when she told me the story. I was incredulous and horrified but I didn't think to launch a full interrogation to get all the details. It wasn't until I got home and thought about it for a day or two that I began to realize how wrong it really was and that the parents have a right to know.
Since I don't have a lot of information and I was not a witness
to the fact, I don't see how much I can do except spread the word as much as possible. I think there's enough information that if this really happened as my friend says, and someone close to the child sees it, they will ask questions.
How many plastic surgeons with their wife working in their office have a toddler who broke their foot at pre-school recently in the NNJ area? I have spoken to my friend recently and encouraged her to do what's right but who knows if she will or not. As i said, I do know she is actively seeking new employment.
I understand why a lot of you choose to stay home and/or are wary of daycares, but I promise you, there ARE good daycares and daycare workers. You just don't hear about them in the news.
ReplyDeleteI worked in daycare for about 8 years and, in my opinion, those kids were lucky to have so many people around who loved them.
I know you're always going to find shady, negligent childcare providers, but AGAIN I promise you, the majority of us are not like that!
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ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDeleteMaybe you should stay home and take care of your children instead of leaving them in other peoples care. After all if your husband is a doctor you really don't need to work. Do you?.What's more important your "job" or your child. Get off your fat ass and take care of your child.
Apr 23, 2009 8:00:00 PM
Uh, who are you talking to anonymous?
ReplyDeleteI originally missed where the OP said "Goddard School". In the comments she mentioned it may have happened in Randolph. There are several Goddard Schools, but this is the closest match:
ReplyDeleteANNE & JOHN RICZKO
1570 Sussex Turnpike
Randolph, NJ 07869
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ReplyDeleteGood grief anonymous. Nobody said she's bent out of shape in the first place. She doesn't even know! Sure she'll be upset that her child is hurt. Any decent mother would be. What she ought to be really mad at is that they dared to lie to her about how he got hurt. Accidents are accidents and the school needs to own up to what happened.
ReplyDeleteDon't automatically start picking on his mom.
I too perfer that moms stay at home...but that doesn't automatically mean any mom who doesn't is a crappy mom. Or that the mom in question here, or her son, deserved to be hurt or lied to.
anonymous, first of all, you need a moniker or your comments are going to get deleted. Second of all, as Mom mentioned, the mother doesn't even know...which is the whole point of the post. Is reading comprehension a problem of yours or is this an isolated incident?
ReplyDeleteSeriously, why are you so bent out of shape?
The accident itself obviously wasn't the issue and almost everyone has acknowledged that. The lying is the problem.
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ReplyDeleteI also think that I might know of the school in question and I can't believe that a parent of our school would stoop so low as this!!! My children have been with the Goddard School since 2003 and not once have I had a doubt that this was the best school in the area - no- the state - since i just delivered my last child in February I am very content that I have a place for my baby since I have no choice but to work (believe me if I had the choice I would NOT). I happen to know the owner and director very well and can say for a fact that they are individuals who care more for the children than any other school I visited - Which is why I took the time to spot visit and show up at odd/busy times during the day - never once was I not 100% welcomed into the school! My real queastion is... If your husband really is a doctor and plastic surgeon ... why is your child in any sort of care besides your own!!???? Guilty conscience??? Why not pay attention to your own family apparently you should!!
ReplyDeleteAha Mr. Watson, I think we have it! The angry posters who are so bitterly lashing out at the mother of th einjured boy are connected to the school in question. I guess they subscribe to the theory that the best defense is a good offense.
ReplyDeleteShame on them for casting ugly accusations at the mother of this child...especially if their own children attend the same school. If they have all the money for this fanbtastic school, why are THEY not staying home and raising their own children...if they seem to think it is such a crime for this other lady to have her child in daycare?
And it sounds like they're a bit bitter about the other mom's financial status too.
Guess what laides, it's not your place to decide what kind of money some other mom has in comaprison to you and then dictate how she should raise her kids because of it...PARTICULARLY when you are raising your kids the exact same way. Can you spell hypocrite?
And guess what else...your angry posts sound really defensive...which sounds sort of guilty. Do you actually own the school, or are you just moms they put up to defending them on here?
Shame on you.
Why do we always look for the worst in people. How do you know if the parents were lied to if you were not there. I have to work and the people in my child's Goddard school are professional and truly care about the children that are in their care.They are there for our children when we can't be there and for very little money.
ReplyDeleteApr 23, 2009 8:40:00 PM - anonymous
ReplyDeleteIf you are not willing to take care of your own children and leave them in the care of others don't get all bent out of shape when there is an accident. If you are mnarried to a plastic surgeon I am sure you are not hurting for money. I am talking to the woman who calls herself the mother of the child who got hurt.
If we're really talking about the Goddard School on Sussex Turnpike in Randolph... I worked there once, several years ago, when I was fresh out of college. It was a nightmare. They had two directors and three assistant directors - this is not a big school, so they were always on top of us when we didn't need them, but when we did (an emergency bathroom break or out-of-control child), they were nowhere to be found. Though they had great resources and it was a beautiful school, I was disappointed in the way they treated their staff.
ReplyDeleteThis is John and Anne Riczko, the owners of the Goddard School in Randolph, N.J. The unfortunate incident being discussed in this thread did NOT occur at our school. We follow the highest standards of health and and safety as required by the State and as further required by our corporate franchisor. We also do not employ any high school students at our school. Moreover, we would never lie to parents or cover up an inquiry, as we take pride in our honest relationship with our parents. If the incident referred to in this thread occurred at another Goddard franchise, we certainly encourage the parents to report the incident to the Goddard corporate office, (610) 265-8510.
ReplyDelete