WESTPORT, Mass. — A Massachusetts dad says he smashed the window of a day care center to fetch his 3-year-old daughter, who’d been locked inside after staffers left for the day.
Keith Paquette says when he arrived at Westport Country Day School just after 5 p.m. Monday to pick up daughter Samantha Jo, the building was locked and no one was there.
He called his wife, and she called a teacher, who returned to the school.
They heard crying from inside, so Paquette broke a window to get to his daughter.
School officials told police they did a sweep of the building before leaving, and that Samantha Jo had been checked off on a list indicating she’d been picked up.
Police and state child welfare officials are investigating, and the Paquettes say they’ve found a new preschool.
Just after 5PM – that’s what you get – these day care centers are pretty stiff about their closing times – pick up your child the next morning (not funny – sorry). There are local daycares who will charge $10 per minute after hours if you are late picking up your child. I guess you’re lucky they don’t close with your kid inside, money or no money in hand. And let’s see – you pay even though the day care owner is closed for vacation, you pay if your child is out sick – they got a pretty good system going for all you parents, don’t they?
Dad did the right thing . We need to find out who left this kid and they need to be fired at the very least if not in jail.
Somebody really dropped the ball on this one.. Oops!
That is attention to detail now isn’t it.
Ill bet the check off on her was done after the break in. It’s called fixing the record…..
It wouldn’t make sense to check her off after the break in to “fix the record.” That would only make it worse for the staff that checked her off for any reason if she was not picked up. My guess is that at the end of the day the staff thought all the children were gone, this child might have been hiding or sleeping–for whatever reason they did not notice her, they hadn’t checked her off but must have assumed another staff person saw her leave and just forgot to check her off, so they just checked her off themselves. I am guessing there will be more than one person fired over this–as they should be!
They may not actually close at 5pm. They may have just closed up shop and locked the doors when they “thought” all the kids were gone.
Of course, checking her off the list with the assumption she was picked up also tells me the staff doesn’t pay too much attention in identifying the parent or guardian before releasing the child. Scary thought.
This is totally UNACCEPTABLE !!! The little THREE year old must have been so confused and frightened. Imagine how that must have felt for her. I hope this closes down the Day Care.
Her name had been checked off the list indicating that she had been picked up? How does that happen!!!????? This is no oversight, no mistake. With children disappearing everyday their safety and well being have to be top priority. This Day Care dropped the ball in a real big way. Where my grand kids go the person picking up the child has to sign, date and write the time in the log when they pick up their child. I think would be good practice for other Day Cares and schools.
I find it too bad that these stories of alleged incompetence in the workplace keep popping up and there are so many very competent people out of work.