Expected to buy own supplies?

[indego]

Hi everyone,

Just a quick question for you all... Are you expected to buy your own supplies for routine experiences?
I'm talking about Educators buying new pencils when the old ones are nothing but stubs, Educators replacing tape and textas, etc.

The place I'm working at the moment requires all Educators (even those only working 2hr after school shift each week) to plan the activities they wish to run, and to buy all of the supplies, down to the pencils and paper. Pretty much the entire service is stocked with things that Educators have brought in from home, and have paid for out of their own pocket without reimbursement.

There is a supplies/equipment budget, but it's under $80 a term for a 75 place service.
The service is run by a small, for profit company.

Any thoughts?

[Lorina]

In centres that I have worked in all supplies are purchased by the centre itself or even during our weekly shopping.... I have had to buy some supplies however I had been fully reimbursed for my purchase and only once I had spoken to the director of what and why I was purchasing it... Having only $80 per term to work with is very less! I think you should look into getting families to supply recycling (cardboard boxes, tubes, newspapers, crates) that you could use for activities as well.. You could even make your own recycling paper as well! I guess that you could always put your purchases as TAX deductible but I still wouldn't be happy if I was asked to make additional purchases with my own money!

,
Lorina

[indego]

Thanks for the feedback

I'm looking into getting parents to donate goods, but I get the feeling the owner will make this difficult. She's very keen on looking her version of professional, which apparently means not asking for anything.

I'm having second thoughts about working with the company, actually. I've only been with them for 4 weeks, and all ready we've had 6 days where the owner has run over ratio (one day she ran with 72 children and 4 staff). She sends staff home at 5pm, even if we're still over ratio, she's left mid shift, again, putting us over ratio...
She's using under half of the licensed area, so 42 children are being cared for in an area legally that can only hold 18 legally. (All other rooms are locked)
She's locked all children and staff out of the toilets, and despite me having a quiet word to say I was on my period and needed access to the toilet she wouldn't open it because "Then the children will go inside."

I'm expected to take on the nominated supervisor role soon, and I'm just not comfortable taking on the role for a company that has absolutely no respect for legislation

[Lorina]

Farout! What is going on!! Locking staff and children out of the toilet! Is she mental!! How can 4 staff look after 72 children! That's stupid! It's an accident waiting to happen honestly. If your gut is telling you to get out then chances are you should before something serious happens. I'm not sure how your OOSH service can run when your ratios don't add up as well as areas for so many number of children. It should all be evident in the paperwork having that many children and only a certain amount of staff...

Is there someone above her, you can talk to?

,
Lorina

[indego]

She's the owner, so the only place I can go is straight to the Department of Education and Training - which I'm seriously considering.
On Friday, the owner was working on her laptop in an empty room and she sent 14 kids into the front room "Because it's 5 o'clock, and we go into the front room at 5 o'clock!" making for a total of 31 kids in the room - which is licensed for 18.

The over crowding lead to kids getting a bit aggravated (as you'd expect) and one of our additional needs kids got into a full on fist fight with a grade 6 boy. A dad picking up another child had to help me and another Educator separate them because they kids were to strong for us.
Then the additional needs kids does a runner, and makes it all the way onto a major main road, during peak hour, before I can catch up with him. I ended up calming him down and walking him back into the service with no harm done... But the owner ignored all the yelling and just kept working on her laptop.
I tried to speak with her about what happened, because it really needed to have a Serious Incident report filled out... But nope. "When we fill those out, we get an inspection!!" (Funny... When I filled them out at my old service, they were all met with "We can see you did everything to prevent it, these things happen." We never got an inspection after a report.)

Only the day before I'd talked to her about the breaking of ratios and room space causing behavior issues that could very easily be avoided, and said that I felt the additional needs kids needed more support and asked if she'd looked into ISS funding. But apparently "This is how we run," and "ISS is to expensive! It works out to nearly $2000 a year!!" (Which is ironically less than the fine she'll be up for if she gets a surprise inspection...)

So she knows that she'll fail an inspection... But hasn't quite figured out that we now have several parents who were directly involved in a physical altercation and a run away. One of them is bound to call the DET even if I don't.

I started applying for other jobs last night. Now all I have to do is figure out how to stop feeling guilty and like I'm abandoning the kids.