I am actually in the verge of tears right now. I have had 2 12 hour days and apparently have one tomorrow. Usually i go in late on friday but it is a dismissal day, meaning 12 hours of camp. I went back and forth with supervisor about how many staff i could have, he said only 3 for 21 kids and about a 12 hour camp day. I advocated hard because that puts me in ratio and working 12 hours but no budging. It means that we go 6 hours with either taking no bathroom break or putting our program out of ratio to do it. A colleague also has the day off school and is sending me a staff person on her budget, some of the kids signed up are not our regular students, i talked to one mom and the paperwork said celiac, OTand PT but no accomodations needed. No, he has down syndrome and needs to be diapered according to his teacher. I am the only one who could do this so i am back to that 12 hour day. It is too late to cancel his care but i need a serious talk with family.
I am just not even sure where to go next with sup. The new head of our department is a big reason he got the job, so no going up the chain of command! But he doesn't know things, at best this situation disrespects my time by not allowing me to staff reasonably, at worst puts safety in question. English is also not his first language but as long as i slow down and am careful about bow i explain things that doesn't seem to be the problem. I just keep trying my best communication and i don't trust he understands what i am saying. I even sent visual schedules to support what i was saying. In other cases he has tried to help me with staffing, he doesn't have any information about the candidates and seems confused when i remind him i need a higher qualified candidate than what he has found. He visited me yesterday and didn't recall basic information such as how my program runs. Meanwhile super nice and eager, and i really want to get past whatever misunderstanding. I have thought about asking someone to sit with us to talk, just so much risk of this coming back on me again.
Oh dear