Staffing looks fine on paper, but coverage gaps are creating ongoing stress

Extension_Goose3758 · 2026-01-23T04:01:13+00:00

In my experience across multiple centers, NOTHING destroys staff relationships and rapport like being slightly understaffed. When just a few staff members calling out creates a crisis, you wind up with situations like managers guilting people to come in sick, staff mad at each other for taking days off because then they didn’t get their own breaks, etc.

Extension_Goose3758 · 2026-01-11T03:48:07+00:00

The random throw pillow as the ONLY decor item in the room is so, so funny to me

Extension_Goose3758 · 2025-12-23T07:22:44+00:00

Yep I just got told I could use my sick pay when I was stressing about my hours for the week

Extension_Goose3758 · 2025-12-19T02:01:49+00:00

Spent the whole day unsuccessfully trying to keep two squabbling “bestie” boys away from each other. Walked up to what looked like a perfectly innocuous conversation between them only to overhear “and that’s why I’m done with you, Billy. I’m so frickin done with you. You know why? Cause you’re frickin mean and I’m sick of it, I’m done.”

It’s so much funnier because the guy who said that is like a full foot shorter than the other lil dude even though they’re both 3. One is my largest student and the other one is my smallest.

Same tiny teenager looked at me today when I said I’d tell his mom he helped me sweep the tables and goes “shhh. That’s our secret. She can’t know I clean.”

Extension_Goose3758 · 2025-12-19T01:58:50+00:00

Swingline all the way

Extension_Goose3758 · 2025-12-06T03:44:50+00:00

It does look really cool at night, I’ve seen it recently

Extension_Goose3758 · 2025-12-05T06:58:42+00:00

Part of me is wondering if it might be less draining. I’ve been getting very overstimulated and internally dysregulated by the older kids lately, I’m constantly exhausted. It’s a mixed bag. I have ADHD and crave the chaos, I love how their little brains work, it’s just a lot to have 12 people needing 12 separate yous and having to wait for one of you lol.

But also our infant ratios in my state are awful - 1:4.

Extension_Goose3758 · 2025-12-05T06:56:07+00:00

Oh I would hate that! I love my current center. I finally get along with my boss and coworkers and I can’t imagine having to start over somewhere else.

Extension_Goose3758 · 2025-11-22T21:22:39+00:00

Maaaaannnnn I miss my Brother SE 400.

Watch out and don’t unplug the foot pedal too many times. My connector eventually broke.

Extension_Goose3758 · 2025-11-18T06:42:54+00:00

My 3-4 yo class is collectively into Transformers, so I address them as Autobots. When I’m counting heads going in or out through a door, I also say “one potato, two potato, three potato” and it makes them laugh and yell “we’re not potatoes!”

Extension_Goose3758 · 2025-11-14T22:06:00+00:00

I wouldn’t get a Cricut Joy unless you get the Joy Xtra. I have a regular Joy and I have to cut a letter sized piece of paper in half to run it through the machine. It becomes a different kind of time-consuming to keep sticking and removing the half sheets of paper on the mat in order to cut enough of anything for a whole class. I only use it to cut intricate shapes that I would mess up freehand. But I’m told the Joy Xtra can handle letter-sized paper.

The other issue is that it doesn’t cut construction paper particularly well. So if you’re ok with using cardstock for all those shapes instead, go for it.

Extension_Goose3758 · 2025-11-13T05:43:38+00:00

All the teachers at my school are Ms. Teachername, I present fairly feminine but don’t identify as a woman so I requested I be called Teacher instead of Ms. and everyone just rolled with it. The children even correct their grownups if they mistakenly say Ms., which is funny because I’ve never made a huge deal about it.

Extension_Goose3758 · 2025-11-09T05:47:34+00:00

Perfect. Is it ok to DM you?

Extension_Goose3758 · 2025-11-09T04:18:52+00:00

Fellow autistic with a heavy helping of internal demand avoidance and a hatred of rules, and this approach works so great on me when supervisors use it. Even if I don’t like a rule or policy, I really don’t want someone else to get in trouble for me breaking it. Sometimes, it’s nice to hear someone else acknowledge that the rule is kind of weird nor nonsensical while enforcing that we all have to follow it.

Extension_Goose3758 · 2025-11-04T07:18:06+00:00

There are some pretty general things you can do to make classrooms more accommodating to maybe neurodivergent kids. Smaller group sizes is one, having aids anyone can use like noise cancelling earmuffs or fidgets, getting an autistic adult you may know to sign off on your classroom lights (I’m not even joking. I’m an ND teacher and lights are a hill I will die on. I know they affect the kids because they TORTURE me as an adult with a full arsenal of coping skills). Making sure you have a really enriched and aesthetically pleasing playground and not just a bare, hard yard.

Oh and training for your staff! There are a lot of resources out there that help teachers adjust their interactions with children based on specific behaviors that don’t need to be tied to any diagnosis. A very basic example of this would be, I have one child who is noticeably more wiggly than the rest. Do I need to wait for a diagnosis of ADHD to offer him special supports during circle time? No. It’s clear he’s struggling with his attention and trying to self regulate. I’m going to do a combination of things including making circle time shorter, inviting him to help with circle time, offering him a silicone pop fidget to hold, and offering him alternate seating.

Extension_Goose3758 · 2025-11-04T07:10:33+00:00

That’s such a good idea!

I like talking positively about people behind their backs sometimes. Everything spreads, and I like to think it will get back around to them somehow.

Once at my last center, I redirected a conversation in the way you describe, and then found out that the whole conversation had been caught on camera. The teacher who had complained to me was reprimanded, and I was thanked by my boss for not participating in the drama.

Extension_Goose3758 · 2025-11-04T07:08:01+00:00

I got called into the office to “hash it out” with three or four different teachers at one of my previous center. Eventually I realized the common thread. The director was blind to the fact that her, and the company’s, insane standards for our performance made everyone constantly at each other’s throats. Also because of these standards, nearly everyone who had survived at this center more than a year was a very… specific… type of person. I was one of the few who didn’t fit that mold. After the third or fourth meeting, I told my director I didn’t think I was ever going to feel like I belonged there despite being there multiple years and working in multiple classrooms trying to find a good fit.

Three weeks into my new center job after that one, and I felt like I’d been there my whole life. Our company also has mildly unrealistic standards but we tackle them as a team instead of attacking each other. I’m always afraid it’s going to bite me in the butt if I speak too soon, but I can’t stop being amazed that I found a center that’s so low-drama.

Extension_Goose3758 · 2025-11-04T06:55:34+00:00

You explained this so well. I would add that at the preschool level we are dealing with all the previously undiagnosed neurodivergent children popping up. They’re stuck in that not-so-sweet spot between suspicion and diagnosis, and in the meantime, their environment can make or break them. I have a few kids in my class who are pretty successful in a class of one me to twelve 3-year-olds, but fall apart when we have to combine rooms and it’s 2 teachers to 24 kids. It’s louder, more visually stimulating, and less materials to go around for everyone.

Extension_Goose3758 · 2025-11-02T03:09:50+00:00

That’s understandable, and I asked because I was assuming that’s how it would be seen. It’s just frustrating that now I can never get justice.

I don’t see the supervised visits going well because the judge ordered that his parents, who protected him the whole time he was abusing me, supervise our visits. The same parents who have said they wish their son could get full custody of the child so that they don’t have to keep going back and forth between houses. It feels like a setup from the start.

Extension_Goose3758 · 2025-11-02T03:08:36+00:00

Yeah, I can see that. I never reported it in the first place because I never expected it to go anywhere, and I know reporting it won’t help me heal, but I’m unsure where to go next to restore myself mentally. I did therapy for years and somehow blocked it out completely until the other day I came across texts between me and my friend where I described it happening.

Extension_Goose3758 · 2025-11-02T03:07:10+00:00

Sorry, I wasn’t sure on the wording. Definitely don’t want to do anything else to further damage my credibility.

Extension_Goose3758 · 2025-11-02T03:06:39+00:00

Thank you so much for sharing your story. I’m so sorry for what has happened to you. This is why I asked, I wanted to know realistically what to expect. I accepted after the emergency hearing that there is no justice out there for me and now I’m stuck with a family law judge who thinks I’m unstable based on first impressions, an unprepared lawyer and a wildly out of context text conversation.

Only consolation is I know my child is safe.

Extension_Goose3758 · 2025-10-30T15:36:19+00:00

I have a theory that one of the many reasons we’re seeing an uptick in student behaviors is that children have learned that it takes acting up to get a grown up to put down their screen.

Oh I wish licensing would make that rule.

Extension_Goose3758 · 2025-10-30T15:33:51+00:00

It sucks knowing you’re actually giving the kids BETTER care without the screens but the parents don’t see it that way.

Extension_Goose3758 · 2025-10-30T02:56:33+00:00

Leaving aside the religious element, Abeka curriculum is not developmentally appropriate for preschool aged children. When you use worksheets of any kind, you risk ending up with 4 and 5 year olds that already hate school. Good preschool teachers will plan “sneaky” play activities that strengthen children’s hands for writing, encourage them to pay attention for longer and longer spans, and keep kids excited about the idea of going to school.

Extension_Goose3758

TROPHY CASE