Advertisement

Children at Ottawa daycare taped down during nap time; workers fired

Two workers at a daycare inside Ottawa's Bayview Public School were fired after reports that children were taped to cots during nap time.

Working with children must be a frustrating job: All those rambunctious little people, excited and learning and moving and not sleeping when you want them to.

If only there were a way to harness those children, to focus their attention on one task at a time. Like nap time. If only there were a way to, like, really make them nap. Something that doesn’t involving masking tape, preferably.

Sadly, a better solution wasn’t found in this case. CBC News confirmed two employees at an Ottawa daycare were fired after a parent complained that children were taped their cots during nap time.

Deborah Cooper, president of the board of Ottawa School Day Nursery Inc., said three or four senior kindergarten children were taped to their cots at the Bayview Public School daycare when they wouldn't settle down for their afternoon naps.

[ Related: Daycare workers fired after children taped down for naps ]

An investigation was launched after a parent complained and two employees were quickly suspended and later fired.

It is not clear whether the incident happened on more than one occasion, or whether their mouths were covered in masking tape (as one parent claims). Only that the children were taped to their cots and were not injured in the incident.

The school board alerted parents to the incident on a private message board, but is that enough? Several parents of children at the school who spoke to media this week had not heard about the incident.

Ottawa police are not investigating and the Children’s Aid Society was contacted, although no action has been taken.

[ More Brew: Class photographer segregates student in wheelchair ]

The Ottawa Citizen notes that at least one parent has complained to the College of Early Childhood Educators, which has the authority to conduct a hearing and strip early childhood educators of their credentials.

According to the Early Childhood Educators Act, professional misconduct includes these relevant points:

  • Failing to supervise adequately a person who is under the professional supervision of the member.

  • Abusing physically, sexually, verbally, psychologically or emotionally a child who is under the member’s professional supervision.

  • Failing to maintain the standards of the profession.

  • Acting or failing to act in a manner that, having regard to the circumstances, would reasonably be regarded by members as disgraceful, dishonourable or unprofessional.

It is justified to fear that at least one of those rules was breached in this incident. If there is an investigation, one wonders how taping children down isn’t considered “failing to maintain the standards of the profession.”