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

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Nope. It’s weird. This week is Valentine’s Day and my son’s preschool said they couldn’t tell us even the first names of the students so he could write them on his Valentines. I’m very uncomfortable with this too. There is absolutely no law that requires this strange rule. It seems like they are hiding something. You have to decide whether you are willing to pull your child or not, but I do not leave my child in the care of someone with no last name.
 
It would allow you to confirm that they are, indeed licensed, if they claim to be. It allows you to hotline accurately in case something goes wrong and the school can’t say, “Gee. We don’t know who exactly she is talking about.” It allows you to perform your own background check.
 
I live in St Louis, which is a pretty large city. When people of even moderate professional nature attempt to contact me, they typically address me as Mrs. Last Name. When I answer a phone and hear, “Hi! Allegra?” It’s almost always someone is selling BS or wanting to tell me about their candidate. I generally delete emails addressed to “Allegra”. I’ve had enough Nigerian prince proposals. Maybe my hometown is strange in that regard, but I feel like other cities I’ve visited are “Thank you for coming in, Mrs. Last Name” places. People with no last names typically work at Kohls or the Taco Bell. I don’t trust my children with people with no last names.
 
Hi everybody thank you for your responses! I appreciate you all. I did eventually get her full name and the Director later even looked at me in the eye and said “she’s sorry she handled our first conversation poorly”. As soon as i asked her yesterday she looked sincerely perplexed so i have to believe maybe no one did ask her before and she had to check. She later gave me both of his teachers full name with no problem.
 
That’s the exact opposite of my experience. I think there’s recently been some sort of law or rule in my state. Every time someone comes into the room, they have to tell you their name and title and show you their card, which has their name, job and photo on it.
 
I mean EVREYONE. Including the guy who just comes in to collect the linens or make sure there’s a TV remote. “Hi, I’m Francis Oberweiss from the (name removed by moderator)atient technology department, come to make sure your remote is still here.” And they show you their card.
 
We have spent a kajillion times in medical facilities over the past 4 years. Always, except for physicians and PA’s, first name, title and photo only on ID badges. This is a security measure. There are some cray cray people out there!!
 
That in-house elder care facility sounds just as worrisome as this day care. You are entitled to know the full name of the person you are entrusting your baby (or parent) to. And it is the facility’s responsibility to do a background check on their employees, not your responsibility. To the OP: I would suggest, as others have, that you have a talk with the Director of the facility and express your concerns.
 
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Is the person quoted in this article trying to claim that they are being hunted down on a daily basis by people who look his name up on the internet? I’m sure that things can get hairy out there in the medical world, but I think I would have to see some police reports before I’d believe that claim. I have several family members in the healthcare field and none of them have ever mentioned being hunted down at their home or outside of the workplace. They do have to deal with verbal abuse, false accusations, and people who report them over nothing as well as occasionally (not every day) having to deal with a patient who is not in their right mind and is physically aggressive, but they don’t have people showing up at their door or even contacting them outside of work. I still say that anonymous health care is unsafe and I hope this bill fails by a large margin!
 
Yes, true. Still, when somebody hasn’t quite been on the up-and-up with me, I like to get some facts and see if there is anything else they’ll tell me that isn’t true.

Martha Stout is an expert on sociopaths, psychopaths and others who engage in manipulative behavior. This is her Rule of Threes: One lie, one broken promise, or a single neglected responsibility may be a misunderstanding instead. Two may involve a serious mistake. But three lies says you’re dealing with a liar, and deceit is the linchpin of conscienceless behavior. She’s not talking about polite lies, like acting as if you don’t see a stain on someone’s clothing or pretending that you don’t know that their bragging about their child isn’t true. She’s talking about serious deceit.

This Director is probably not a seriously deceptive person, if we are talking about real risk, but she’s earned a healthy dose of scepticism.
 
Allegra said:
I mean EVREYONE. Including the guy who just comes in to collect the linens or make sure there’s a TV remote. “Hi, I’m Francis Oberweiss from the (name removed by moderator)atient technology department, come to make sure your remote is still here.” And they show you their card.
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The laws about this vary by state. Some states require full disclosure of the names of everyone working in a health care setting.

I’ve never had a child in a school that didn’t disclose the full names of all the teachers, though. That’s just odd. If the job requires licensing, the clients have to be able to look up or report the person to the state licensing authorities.

Day care (and day care laws) are another kettle of fish. Some states are quite lax. I would assume that in those states some providers are very secretive and others aren’t. Parents who have cause for concern would do well to know what the laws in their state are.
 
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I’m half wondering if your voicemail to the State did the trick on it’s own . . . I’m happy it worked out for you.

Honestly, I might still be daycare shopping in your shoes. But at least this buys you time. Even if you stick it our there for a bit, as soon as age 3, you will be able to send your little one to a different place, like a Montessori or church-based preschool.
 
Childcare laws are very lax in Missouri. Only the director of a daycare is required to be licensed. There is a very basic background check required by the state. Basically, if you make it through a CPR course and have never been exposed to tuberculosis, you’re technically hirable. That’s why I’d be very suspicious of hiding the workers’ last names. It makes it hard for parents to look them up, check out their public record, and make sure they actually are license, if they claim they are.
 
Yes. And in the NICU. And in the Emergency Room of a children’s hospital. And in an ER in a hospital that has the largest mental health and addiction facility in the area. And in administration. They’ve seen a lot, but no one’s every come to their house or threatened to.
 
What’s the point then? If someone is willing to take the trouble to go to your house, why do you think they’d be hard pressed to ask the administrator? Plus, in a hospital that’s trying to cover their own butt, how do you know you’re actually getting the correct name? The vast majority of my experience in a hospital has been with my minor children. If a care giver is doing something inappropriate or against the doctor’s orders, I need to know that person’s name. And I can’t just say “my child’s nurse” because other nurses and NAs are going to come into the room at various times.
 
What if they don’t deem it necessary, but I do? And I’m not convinced that it’s happened “enough times”. I don’t see any evidence that suggests that it’s anything other than something that could happen, other than the fairly unbelievable claim from that one administrator that it happens to them “every day”. Do you actually believe that he’s got crazies knocking on his front door every day? It’s sounds like an incredibly exaggerated claim to me. At any rate, no one cares for my kid unless I know their name.
 
Allegra said:
I have several family members in the healthcare field and none of them have ever mentioned being hunted down at their home or outside of the workplace.
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I know someone who regularly got threatening voicemails on his home phone. Always the same guy. He was never sure if it was intended for him or for another provider he knew who had the same name and the same training (that is, MD or RN etc).

I don’t know that people in health care are more vulnerable than, say, people who work in banks or people who work in real estate or in law enforcement or who practice law. If you’re in a field where you’re in a position of trust, people are going to want to know your full name. That’s an occupational hazard, but the reason for not allowing people in certain fields to remain anonymous ought to be obvious. Caring for infants, small children or the elderly, even in a menial capacity, does deserve to be among those fields.
 
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I live in NY and I think some responses were from people that don’t live here & don’t understand how crazy things are here… if you have a trusting relationship with that provider , and you trust your child being there make the best of it… otherwise you have to find a new place with people you don’t know & don’t trust, which takes time… it is more challenging here … than other places due to cost, transportation issues, volume of people, so many different communities. I’m so happy that you have a little boy 🙂
 
TheLittleLady said:
Sadly, there are crazy people out there. In one area of my job with the Church I do not give out my last name.
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Part of my work involves 6 hrs a week in a situation of first names only and absolutely no personal discourse. If it comes up it must be deflected.
 
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