The Tale of the Drunk Teacher and Other Preschool Horror Stories

Last week we held a "" contest and the Mom's Council discussed . This week we take the other side of the coin. Add your own preschool horror stories in the comments, or ask our Mom's Council about preschool questions you may have.

: One of our preschool teachers was drunk on the job.

We started my oldest at a preschool in Brookline when she was 3.  It was in a nice location on Harvard Street right near a playground, and the staff was friendly and energetic about teaching my precocious three year old.  It also seemed like she wasn't going to have any trouble making friends.

The good news was that she did make many fast friends; the bad news was that many of them left after being there for a short period of time.  My husband and I were concerned but didn't have any complaints of our own.  It was when we realized that one of the teachers- who also had a child there- was drunk on the job one day that we started to worry.

After a conversation with another teacher, we learned that as charming as the preschool looked, it had several safety violations, including not having enough fire escape exits.  Done!

While we were very happy at the next place we ended up in, they also gave us a scare when they let my sister pick my daughter up without any ID.  While my sister does look like me- and my daughter- that was a breach of policy.  They were very apologetic afterward and we never had another problem like that with any of my other children, but it was always something we worried about from then on.

: Looking for the right fit, and finding it. Eventually.

Preschool is a lifetime away, but, my precious first born (who is a freshman at UMass) was going to "have it all" — a nurturing environment full of love and creativity... I was going to spare no expense, if I had it, which I didn't--So looking at our family options we applied to "The Park School" in hopes that a modest white hetero couple with a blonde boy of 4 living in a 4 room apartment in JP had a shot.  I got several written recommendations and coached him on sharing and had our play date at Park.  He was number 13 with 11 spots out of 110 applications.  I thought about offing 2 small children, but I decided fate was part of the formula.

Several other rejected pre-schools later and we wound up at Curtis Hall "JP for 4's" which I'm sure most people had great experiences. I dropped him off the first day, he was so proud, glowing in front of the pillars with his lunch box in hand, 2nd day, he said, "do I have to go", 3rd day, he got to the pillars and held on and begged I let him go home... 4th day he wouldn't get out of the car. 5th day... he said he had a stomach ache....  I was told he didn't know his "colors" they had really old faded colors and asked him if the red was red... well it looked pink to me too. Apples could only be red, yellow and green - otherwise you couldn't color the ditto sheet with the apples on a tree.   We decided it wasn't a good fit and started over at a preschool that doesn't exist anymore... we are still close to most of the families who were in that preschool, "Little Village School House"  of 1996 and this past year we had a joint high school graduation party with a bunch.