So… I work in an early head start setting and we are supposed to go back to work tomorrow. My co-teacher and I as well as 2 other teachers can't go back in person with our kids tomorrow because of a pipe bursting in our classroom so we had a meeting with our center director yesterday to figure out what we were going to do. There we were told options that were offered and the one that was most talked about among the higher ups was home visits. My co-teacher and I voiced our concerns about doing home visits. (Like covid and bringing it home to family members that would not handle it well due to medical reasons, and not knowing these people very well and not even knowing if they would be willing to have us on their homes) so after our meeting yesterday our director got on another meeting with all the higher-ups where they made the decision that we would in fact be doing home visits. Well, fast forward to today. We get on a meeting with all the higher ups included for them to tell us that we will in fact be doing home visits and according to our executive director they are “not optional” so even the parents can't say no. I'm sorry, but I find it very disrespectful to tell someone that they are required to do a home visit even if they don't want to and I'm not wanting to be the person to tell them that I'm coming and they don't have a choice…
The way it was handled by the higher ups just gives me the vibe of a child being in trouble and their parents sending them to their room to discuss their punishment… don't change my job description and make major choices about what I will be doing and not include me in the main conversation. By the time we had the meeting all the minds of the higher ups were clearly made up because when someone tried to voice their concerns again today all the executive director said was basically thank you for voicing your concerns but this is what we are doing and we will train you 2 days this week on how to properly do a home visit.