When you take the job of administrator or director of a child care center you usually don't think too much about how it will end. That is to say, it seems we who work with children and families are mostly optimstic and assume that most days will be rosy. That isn't always the way the story ends.
The first time I was fired wasn't really so much a shock as it was a realization that a board, the people who had hired me, had really not wanted for their school and its population what they thought they wanted. It really wasn't anyone's fault that I got the axe, it simply was a grand "misunderstanding". Nevertheless, there I was on the unemployment line and handling questions from my professional peers as to what had happened. How could I answer their questions when I was searching for the answers myself.
We'd started out on an optimistic note...they were eager to have me begin to create order and change in their program and they were eager to deal with their financial difficulties...that's what they said. It turned out that their financial difficulties were directly tied to their philosophical practices. Among those practices were two very basic problems that needed to be addressed.
The first, non-payment of tuition seemed obvious. There were children attending for months on end without paying tuition. I began the usual route of speaking to families and offering them payment plan options. What I finally figured out was, the most offending families were those who were serving on the Board of Directors. It became obvious that they needed to pay lip service to clearing the debts but when it came time to pay-up it was far more difficult than they realized because of their personal involvement.
The second area was related to staff members who didn't come to work, yet received pay far beyond their specified benefits. They had learned if they talked to the Board they could continue to abuse the system. When we spoke of the cost of underwriting their behavior the Board could not bring themselves to change.
And so, at the last Board meeting I was to attend, I finally came to realize the Board and the Staff did not want to change. Without realizing it, they had become quite comfortable with the system they were living within. Oh sure, some months it was financially tight for the school which meant fewer supplies or trips, but everyone accept this.
So, I had to go. The brief conversation that early Friday morning followed by the prepared letter stating my contract would not be renewed was sudden. I was to stay on an additional four weeks which would get them through their fiscal audit with the funding agency. The Board notified staff members that I was a lame-duck director and it became impossible to safely conduct the program. I didn' make it the additional four weeks. I notified the Board I was leaving promptly and then filed for unemployment.
Although the Administrative Law Judge decided I was entitled to unemployment benefits since the Board had removed my authority leaving me in a sensitive legal situation, I was saddened to hear the President of the Board accuse me of "potentially cashing petty cash checks and keeping the money". If they'd really thought that, of course they would have called for a criminal investigation. You see, since they were non-profit they were also self-insured and would have to pay all of the unemployment payments.
All in all I came away from the experience with a better understanding of human nature and without bitterness. That school still operates under the same system with most of the same cast of characters. One day a few months later I accidently ran into the Board Member who fired me and he could not look at me. Several years later, a grandmother came with her daughter to enroll a child in my new program...she had been the other Board member who'd been there for the termination. Time heals a great deal. And while the story didn't end the way I thought it would (with a wonderful program I had wanted to create) it didn't end with my complete professional melt-down. The world went on.
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