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Day care teacher loses her job after reporting on violations in her own classroom

Posted on March 16th, 2009 – 8:00 PM
By James Shiffer

For those of you who missed it, my Sunday story dealt with the plight of Lauren Strom, the erstwhile lead teacher in the older toddler room at the Cradle Club in downtown Minneapolis. She had contacted the state Department of Human Services after becoming convinced that her employer wasn’t taking the teacher-student ratio rule seriously. The story has sparked quite a conversation about who was right and who was wrong.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 16th, 2009 at 8:00 pm and is filed under Businesses in hot water, Whistleblowers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

3 Responses to “Day care teacher loses her job after reporting on violations in her own classroom”

  1. Amelia Says:
    March 17th, 2009 at 5:06 am

    It was a horribly researched article. Lauren wasn’t an angel, she wasn’t as perfect as you tried to make her out to be.

    The worst part is that you’ve given her a place to grand stand frome and if she really cared about the kids (including my kid, who was in her class) then she would have come to the parents and not done this. This just hurts the kids, distracts the staff, causing fighting.

    It is a damn good daycare. I’ve seen so much worse, had to pull my child from so much worse. She’s just a whiny little brat who doesn’t understand the true impact of her actions.

    If you want to pick on day cares, or working parents, then you’re not a reporter, you’re just sum who hates kids.

  2. Jo Says:
    March 17th, 2009 at 7:43 am

    Who are you kidding. Ms. Strom didn’t call the first time it happened. I’ve worked in a wonderful day care center, and now have a child in day care so I understand both points of view. Staff in the room can’t be on the phone calling person after person. I doubt “HR Staff Coordinating” is on their resume. There should be a central number to call for back-up staff. To expect the Lead Teacher to call all over begging someone to come from some other room that then might put that room out-of-ratio, creating a cascade of teachers running from room to room is not the answer.

    I can’t belive they’d fire this teacher without a warning first, especially since she had excellent reviews.

  3. waynejensen Says:
    March 19th, 2009 at 2:56 pm

    I’ve worked with children for over 30 years in various settings. I’ve been employed by Mpls Public Schools for 25 years as a Child Development Specialist, Behavior Specialist, and currently teach Human Services curriculum. For the past 4 years I’ve brought in students to volunteer @ Cradle Club as part of the class. From the first day to present, I have been impressed with ALL of the staff, including Lauren and Scarlett Radway. For the children’s sake I hope this will quickly pass. The OUTSTANDING staff/director create a positive environment. They are consistent, creative, supportive, cohesive, supportive, flexible, respectful, nurturing, and HIGHLY PROFESSIONAL in their interactions with their colleagues, the children, and my students. Cradle Club has created a model of QUALITY day care. The staff & Scarlett are “beyond words” experts in child development & highly skilled childcare providers! I have and will continue to refer friends and co-workers to Cradle Club. My students and I feel truly blessed to work with such wonderful staff and children!!!

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