My baby’s daycare doesn’t allow knowing last name of teacher

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MarthaSo

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Hi everybody,
My 10 month old has a new daycare teacher and when I spoke to the Director of the facility and asked a little more about her including last name she said they are not permitted to give out that information.
My baby loves it there, it is a clean safe environment so I don’t want to find another daycare provider over this. But this didn’t sit well with me at all. I just wanted to google the new woman who’s caring for my baby to be frank as weird as that sounds to many here.
Should I just trust that the Director did their due diligence. i asked if she was cpr certified and she said yes but i sensed hesitation. This new teacher has her own child enrolled in the same school.
I feel paranoid now about them holding her last name from me, what do you suggest I do if anything? thank you
 
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Who made the rule that they can’t give out last names?

Is there somebody who outranks the Director?

What’s the local authority that oversees day-care facilities? Can you go to them for explanations?
 
Thanks, I don’t know. I was going to call another Director at a different daycare today and ask her about this policy. It may only be this particular daycare which is weird.
What are some words of expression I can use when following up with the Director today? I was thinking of saying “I feel uncomfortable not knowing the name of the person caring for my baby” but then it’s like I don’t trust the facility.
That’s why I’m looking for advice. thanks again
 
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I just heard from another mom that her daycare posts names and certifications of their infant teachers, now I’m worried.
 
I think it’s reasonable to be uncomfortable not knowing the full name of the caregiver looking after your baby. I realize they probably put this rule in place to try to protect their staff from harassment or from people googling them or whatever, but with all the horror stories in the news about daycare, it doesn’t build trust when a facility seems to be less than transparent about who is working there.

When you send your child to school, you know the first and last name of their teacher. Why should daycare be any different?
 
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MarthaSo said:
I just heard from another mom that her daycare posts names and certifications of their infant teachers, now I’m worried.
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I advise you to ask some pointed questions of that Director and anyone else in charge. If you’re not fully satisfied by the answers then check out other day care centres.

Actually checking out other centres for their policy about employee names sounds like an excellent idea.
 
Thanks, I just don’t know what to do now. I plan to go this morning to meet the teacher but when I speak to the Director I’m afraid she still won’t provide that information and then I’ll be at a loss and worried and upset every day.
 
You can express to the Director that you as a parent are made very anxious by the policy and that it seems to be a lack of transparency and doesn’t build trust. This is honest feedback. The daycare is a business. It is providing a service for you and you as a customer are allowed to tell them you don’t like their policy. You can also mention how much you love other aspects of the daycare (it’s clean, your child seems happy there etc) but this one thing about names doesn’t sit right with you.

The Director might also explain to you why the policy is in place and maybe you could try to see their side of it also, although I tend to agree with you in not liking the policy.

At the end of the day, you’d need to decide whether finding another daycare is worth the hassle, taking all facts into account.
 
This is a strange rule and I wouldn’t like it either.

I’m sure they did it for protection reasons but there’s a limit to protection when two people can’t interact on such a basic level.
 
When my child was at a private daycare/preschool in the official documents and communications there was the full name only of the lead teacher, the teacher’s helpers were only named as Miss first name X. I would not worry much about googling them, the school usually includes in the hiring process a full background check. I think there is usually a high turnover of the teacher’s helper (many are students or women waiting to get a better paid job) plus often parents try to hire them as baby-sitters or nannies and this is a practice discouraged by daycares and preschools. Moreover some people may not want to disclose their own full name for other personal reasons not connected with anything that could harm the children (think about people that are refugees or rebuilding their life somewhere else in the country after a nasty divorce, a personal deep loss etc).
 
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If they’re hiding people’s last names, there’s a reason. Did you care if people you worked with knew your last name?

I read about a place locally that sends out people for in-house elder care. Turns out, the care-givers aren’t even vetted by the company. They say that they give you the full name of the care-giver, and if you want to get a background check on them–which the company recommends–that’s fine with the company. It’s all on you. If you don’t do a background check, you are the one who is negligent.

Guess not knowing the last name of someone you are dealing with would preclude your doing a background check on them. If I were you, I’d find a new daycare facility immediately.
 
Aroosi, are you in USA or Europe? Europe has different privacy rules.
In USA we expect to know names and be able to look the person up online. For example (and this is an extreme case), see if they are on a public sex offender registry.
Not so much in Europe. There may also be other countries following the lead of Europe.

As for people who are rebuilding their lives or trying to hide from an ex or whatever, in USA there are a lot of jobs they could take where they would not have to reveal their names to their customers (For example, phone customer service rep), but child care is normally not one of them.
 
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MarthaSo said:
but then it’s like I don’t trust the facility.
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Basically, I think you need to overcome your inclination to be polite. You PAY for daycare. It’s a service, this isn’t your friend you are trying not to offend. This is a business that should be able to provide the name and credentials of the child care personnel upon request.

You have no obligation to this daycare, it’s the other way around. And while your child may love it there, she’ll love it at the next place too.

A daycare that would not give me the name of my child’s teacher, and proof of her certification, would become my former daycare.
 
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USA, and the private daycare/preschool was one of the largest in the area.
 
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I’m really surprised that people would use a daycare where you wouldn’t know last names. I wouldn’t trust it and would wonder, as Shasta said, what’s the reason they have such a policy, because it would make me think they’ve had some “incident” or have a reason to hide identities, like they’re having a lawsuit or they have people working there with not-so-savory backgrounds, or even that they have people working there illegally.

This stuff is scary and just makes me glad I do not have children that need daycare. We just recently had an incident at a daycare near me where a staff member was abusing a child. I would think these places would work harder to build parents’ trust and not withhold reasonable information like first and last names.
 
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Well, in the daycare/preschool there was a panel at the entrance with picture, name and last name of the people that were working there regularly (not the substitutes or people hired for a short period). Probably if I would have asked to the director she would have provided more informations about the people not listed. Everybody (perm or temp) was wearing a badge during work hours but for some of them would have been hard to read it without stretching in odd positions. But this was a big school that have been around for 50+ years and with a good reputation in the community. I wouldn’t feel the same if the school was a very small one or with a very short history.
 
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I didn’t know they didn’t use last names until yesterday when they got a new teacher. I was shocked I thought the other teachers name was her last name, then i learned it was her first name in fact. I’m going to see them now.
 
Not sure where you live OP, but here that’s public record.

Where I live their license is available via county records.

It’s pretty normal to call them Miss, Ms, Mr Firstname, but I’m surprised they won’t tell the name from their license as a rule.
 
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