School Report Accuracy.

I take it this is a day care. I wouldn't want to assume, if I were you, but I'd have to have my flags up. Because I'd be asking myself what else do they have wrong. It's important that children not go hungry, a little hunger is one thing, but to be hungry every day is not good, especially for a very young child.

The best place for a child is in a home setting with someone that is balanced and cares and loves them. I know it's hard to find. But it's truly the best thing for many reasons. Children must have someone that loves them and shows them warmth.

I wouldn't ask them anything about the other reports but when something else comes up I'd point it out. The problem is, when parents point out their mistakes they get a bad name behind their backs and the child pays.

Sweet mother of pearl! Do you ask for these reports? What is this insanity! I could care less about the daily goings on of my kids. They tell me when there is an issue. I get the feeling this is a younger child but still, who cares if she napped 2 or 3 hours. Was she crabby?

I would hate that much information and truly would not care if it was accurate or not. My only concern would be is my kid happy there.

Per your what happened, you do realize you contradict yourself all over the place. I have no concerns about the big stuff, I was just wondering about this little stuff like how long is the nap?

The other thing is you said you talk to her. At the point where I could talk to my kids I talked to my kids. "Are you finishing your lunch?" no "Is it because you had your snack before?" See how easy that is? Even if my kids preschool sent those reports they would end up under the seats of the car and eventually in the trash. They are unneeded and useless because how your child feels is the only thing you should care about, not what someone observes them as feeling.

sounds way more like a daycare than a school. how many school kids get naps for 3 hours?
it's nice that daycares offer a 'report' on children's days. i would assume this would contain things like whether or not they ate lunch, any incidents playing with other kids, potty training, and if the kid took a nap. expecting minute-by-minute details is pretty ridiculous. if you're that uptight about whether your child eats her lunch or snack first, how many crumbs are left over and how many times she rolls over during her nap, you need to be a SAHM, or hire a nanny who can devote this degree of laser focus on your child.
khairete
S.

I would be more concerned about why my child's teacher is spending so much time writing the report accurately than spending that time with my child. But that's me.

Yeah. I'm with Julie S. This is insane. What you are managing to do is create unnecessary paperwork for the teacher that could be better spending her time working with your child.
My daughter is 3.5 and stopped getting these a year ago. She's not a baby (which is different). You know what reports I get? I ask her teacher each day if she has been a good girl today. She either says yes, or describes the problem. The end.
Give your providers a little trust. And if you have a question or issue, talk to the teacher- don't rely on reports for goodness sake.

The only age in child care that the state requires a daily report is an infant. Older than that it's up to the teacher or owner to decide. If your child is over 12 months, and I assume since she's talking, that she is.

A daily report should reflect if she had a good day or a rough day so you can know what to expect when you get her home.

Kids are starving when they get picked up, that's the way they're supposed to be. They're going home to eat dinner, you do realize if they let the kids graze all afternoon any time they are hungry or ask for food they'd never eat any dinner at all then they'd be starving at bed time.

So they shouldn't be allowed anything after 2:30/3pm except water to drink.

That's the way their daily schedule should be planned out anyway.

Eat breakfast by 8am, perhaps a mid morning snack, we didn't do one, then lunch, for infants they get to eat when they're hungry for the most part.

Toddlers, age 12 months up to 24 months, eat lunch around 11 then go down for nap by noon, get up around 2:30/3pm and eat a snack. Then play until they go home.

Pre-school age, 2 years old up to 3 years old, at lunch around 11:30, nap until 2-2:30 then have a snack when they get up and around.

Pre-K through school agers. Eat a snack when they get in from school.

If this is real school then she's probably never going to bring home a daily report. That is a waste of a paid teachers time. Lead teachers are in child care and head start not big kid school.

I'd rather have a teacher teaching my child and working on stuff for class instead of sitting around writing up useless daily reports.

I would much rather have the "teachers" interacting with the children or preparing activities that directly relate to their care then have them spending time on paperwork.

I've never heard of a daily report and I would question any preschool that made a habit of this especially if the report wasn't even accurate.

If the reports are being made by a person who hasn't even been there, I think you now know why they are inaccurate. I think that the teachers/helpers PROBABLY feel like having to write a report for each student every day (okay, so it's optional, but I bet ALL the parents want one) is a huge hassle, trying to record who's eating what while they are dealing with the kids, etc, who napped for how long - I mean, do they have to record the exact minute your child nods off and the exact minute she begins to awake?

I would bring it up with administration - that the reports are obviously not accurate, that they are done with an attitude of "who really cares", is what it seems like - and that if the teachers don't care or are feeling hassled, perhaps things need to be evaluated. And perhaps there needs to be a little give and take - I think it's a lot to have to create a daily report on each student in the class. How many children are in the class, and how many teachers/helpers are available from start to finish, etc?

Sure, you can ask about the accuracy. The teacher's probably feel like they need to spend the time with the children and not concentrating on who ate what, when, and how and who napped where and when. Maybe they are giving the snacks early so they have time to sit down and write reports when they should be interacting with the children instead.

My daughter's day care did these daily reports as well when she was in their PreK program. Some days they didn't have time to do them, some days all the boxes weren't filled out, but I didn't stress about it. If my daughter was happy and obviously well taken care of, that's all I cared about, not how much she ate or how long she napped.

How old is your child? If she's in k or above I would not expect reports. Even in day care and preschool we did not get written reports for my grandchildren. If there was a concern the staff would talk with me at pick up.

I see the difference between what they wrote and what actually happened only important because it wasn't accurate; not because it indicates concern for your child's well being. I would talk with the head teacher and possibly suggest they only send a written report when they have a concern about your child. I would focus on making the routine work for her. For example you could send more for lunch or a second snack. Rely on face to face conversation with staff.

Depending on what the teacher says I might tell her that because the reports aren't accurate I would suggest they not give you a report or toss them without reading them. Know that even tho days are routine there will be variations. Does it matter how long she slept? You will make decisions based on what is happening at home.

I'm confused. School? Naps? Are you talking about daycare? Or are your kids actually in a school that does naps? I've never heard of such a thing.

I assume this is preschool or daycare, since you refer to nap time.

And, it sounds to me like the school has gotten itself into a pickle. Parents probably love the idea of daily reports. I know I'd find it hugely reassuring myself. But early childhood education happens on a shoestring. No preschool/daycare in the world can hire a whole person just to observe and write up daily reports. An adult in a preschool classroom is going to be an adult interacting with kids. It actually sounds like the teachers are prioritizing well. If it's a choice between someone interacting with my child and someone documenting my child, I'll take interaction, hands-down, every time. But, it does sound like the school made a promise it couldn't keep.

What I'd really recommend you do is look away from the reports and focus on the traditional ways to evaluate a preschool/daycare. Does your daughter seem happy, when you pick her up. Do the teachers greet her warmly in the morning and make her feel comfortable? Does she get along with the other children, and do the teachers facilitate that? Does she cling to you at drop-off time, or does she run off happily to join in the fun? It could be that the reports are a sign of greater disarray. That's honestly and seriously worth considering. Or, it could be that this is a wonderful, child-focused school that just doesn't have the capacity to generate these reports.

Hm. I guess I do not need to know the details of my child's day. I just need to know if they had a good day, are feeling happy, and were they well behaved. If there is a problem I want to know. I have one child in preschool and one in grade school. If they did not eat much lunch then I expect them to eat a good dinner. But I don't really need the teacher to tell me that. If they seem extra hungry I assume the didn't eat much at lunch or perhaps they are growing. Anyway, I do not want my preschool teacher spending time writing up daily reports for each child. I do not care when my daughter ate her snack...I trust the teachers to do what is best in the classroom that day. My preschooler does not nap anymore, but if she did, I would not need to know how long. Both my kids gave up naps early - at about age 2.5 - so naps are not so important to me. Naps got annoying quickly as they got older bc both kids would not go to bed at their bedtime if they took a long nap. I was very happy when naps ended! So, I guess if I were you I would let go needing to know all the details of the day. If your child is doing fun activities, getting outside play time, socializing with other kids, likes her teacher(s) and seems to enjoy herself, that is all you real need to know in my opinion.

I'm a little confused about the snack, and I think that's part of your question. My son's daycare center has a breakfast snack at 8:30, lunch at 11:30 and an afternoon ancient after nap time, 3:00 or 3:30. My son also goes to the local elementary school for PreK in the afternoon, and he gets a snack there, so it's possible for him to eat too many snacks during the day.

We make sure he has a healthy breakfast and dinner. We also make sure he receive healthy meals on the weekends.

We can't control everything, so we just do the best we can. We know he's happy, and get verbal reports from his teachers at daycare and at PreK.

I might ask about the snack that she says she getting at lunch. I would hope snacks were reserved for snack times so that the more healthy lunch has a better chance of being eaten. That does seem like something to ask the teacher about.

I worked in a toddler room in 2 different centers. and taught full day for a bit and 8 years in a half day preschool. Reports were part of our program for the toddlers, but not for the preschoolers we did a weekly listing of our "projects" instead.

I think a lot of the back lash you are getting is because you said "SCHOOL" and maybe people think you mean kindergarten ??idk perhaps too a Center vs in home care might be different??

At the centers I worked for , We were to document toileting, eating and napping. plus general mood. The reports were a very valuable tool for parents ( maybe I need to say-that care about their kids) to use to determine if the crankiness at night is due to no nap, being hungry, teething/molars coming in, or illness. Why would you not care about those things so that you can best help your child. giving them teething pain reliver wouldn't help a kid that didn't have nap, and a kid that needs an earlier bed time wouldn't be helped by assuming it was something else. It blows my mind that ....a "parent' wouldn't "care".... about those details in a child under 3. and to say as long as my kids is happy really fries me, my kid would be Happy if I left them at Chuckie Cheese for a week. My kid would be Happy if I fed them icecream 3 meals a day. Perhaps people meant to say as long as my child wasn't crying all day away from me. or as long as my child wasn't being beaten?
Daycares can be wonderful places and there are some very special people that work there, but there are some bad ones too. Phsycial safety of the place, the quality of the staff- from how polite they are to me, how they treat the children, how honest they are, and if they are knowledgable about child development , are FAR more important to me than if they have fun toys that the kid likes.

To give the care providers the benefit of the doubt, I will say some people have different ideas of how to qualify how much of someone's lunch was eaten, All to me would mean their usual amount, like maybe all of the half sandwich they were given but not the crusts, and all might mean 4 of the 5 apple slices. another person might be stricter and count that as MOST but not ALL.

Also in regards to nap time, perhaps you counted from when she fell asleep to when she first opened her eyes. were as the staff counted when the lights went out to when dd was fully awake running around the room.

It is hard because usally someone different would cover my lunch during naptime, so how I defined things could be different.
and it is true that if things happened that day out of the ordinary I might not have kept careful records, dealing with a puker for example or being short staffed.

one thing I always felt was very misleading to parents was who was actually with their kid during the day, the drop off teacher might not be the one handling lunch or recess or nap. It was common for teachers from other rooms and age levels to be pulled in to cover ratio, and often time the kids didint' know who they were.

If you dont' feel like you trust the lead teacher then by all means speak to the director. but if they are fudging records why would you think anything would change if you complained? It's hard to keep staff as it is so they probably wouldn't not fire her for not documenting naps consistenstently. if you wanted them to just explain the day better and who could possibly be in the rom and what their responsibilities are, they would probably do that for you if you set up an appointment.

I think doing another pop in observation would be a good idea. I very rarely had paretns do that and I don't ever recall someone staying for more than 30 mins to watch through the observation window, I find it a little hard to believe you just sat from lunch through the whole nap watching. did I misunderstand that part?? I would also sometimes be telling the person writing the report what to put down from my observations if I was trying to deal with something else.
Could you tell from the handwriting or initials if this same person always fills out the reports or not? or oculd you tell if it was a busy day and someone might have just been helping out outside of the normal routine??

shrot answer, I would be upset, but there is'n't a whole lot you can do other than to ask some questions and try to figure out what is really going on.

I don't know... what does your child say about their day? Babies and toddlers obviously can't really tell you a whole lot. But by the time they were about 3 or so, my kids could tell me what parts of their lunch they ate, if they napped all of nap time, or whatever...

I have ALWAYS asked my kids about such things... whether they were left with a baby sitter, or when they were in preschool or kindergarten. Heck, even into elementary and now with son in high school! I ask him a few times a week: "What did you have for lunch today?" "Did you eat it all or was it gross?" etc..

I also know my kids pretty well. And I know that my son will eat just about anything, and that my daughter won't. That if I left the crust on her sandwich, she'd eat about 4 bites (in the middle that she could bite with no chance of getting crust on it) and throw the rest away, but that if I trimmed the crust off before wrapping it up for her lunch, that she'd eat the entire thing. I also knew (when she was 4) that she almost NEVER would take a nap. She actually received permission from the teacher/after-care person, that if she wasn't able to fall asleep she could quietly open a book and read during nap time. (She was only an occasional after-care kid, and was already reading chapter books on her own).

If you ask the questions the right way (and without an accusatory tone)... you can find out quite a lot from your kid, without having to get a report from the school. If something seems off, then ask directly about that particular day/event.

I would definitely question the accuracy of the reports, noting that you were there when the teacher arrived and that that teacher was not there in the morning and therefore how could she write accurate reports. I just about bet ALL the reports say the same thing.

When my daughter was in 4th grade, she had behavior issues. So I devised a very short little form that the teacher only had to check a couple of boxes and give it back to my daughter. All of the reports said she had behaved and had completed all of her work. I was sooo happy! Until report cards came out - she was failing because of her behavior and her not completing her work. How could that be? So, I took the daily notes (I saved them all) and the report card and went to the principal and asked how all these "notes" added up to failing grades. He, of course, had no idea and refused to schedule a meeting with the teacher. From then until now I DO NOT TAKE WHAT ANY TEACHER TELLS ME AT FACE VALUE.