Preschooler left locked in daycare

Head teacher censured after forgetting boy was asleep inside on cushions

A2-year-old boy was left locked inside a “stifling hot” Rotorua childcare centre after the teachers left for the day.

The boy’s mother saw the child asleep on a cushion through the windows of the locked Ebabies Early Learning Centre at Glenholme Primary School when she arrived to collect him soon after the centre closed at 3.30pm on March 21, 2017.

The Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal has censured the head teacher, Mary Jane Queenie Aiavao, who forgot the child because she was distracted by a student from the school arriving to collect a stroller.

Centre manager Ann Brell said Aiavao resigned the next day.

The boy’s mother found someone from the school to open the centre at 3.45pm and the tribunal said the child “slept through the incident and was not harmed”.

But his mother, who was not named, “stated that [her son] was tired from sleeping and very hot”.

“The room inside the centre was stifling hot like it had been closed up for a while,” she said.

An agreed statement of facts says the boy had been asleep on the cushion since about 2.55pm.

After other teachers left between 3.15pm and 3.25pm, a student from the primary school asked about collecting a stroller for his grandmother at about 3.30pm, the statement says.

Aiavao talked for a few moments with the grandmother, and locked up before checking to see if there was still anyone inside the centre.

The boy’s mother, referred to as

Mrs B, arrived soon afterwards, knocked several times, and then rang a school teacher after failing to get through to the centre or the school. After being told the boy was asleep, the mother went back to the centre and saw through a window that her son was still sleeping. She was able to get to her son with the assistance of a school staff member.

Aiavao later wrote a letter to the boy’s parents apologising for the incident and told the tribunal that she felt “disappointed and ashamed”.

The tribunal found that Aiavao was guilty of “neglect” and “serious

We have no doubt that this was a horrifying experience for all concerned.

Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal

misconduct”.

“We have no doubt that this was a horrifying experience for all concerned, especially the parents of [the boy], but also accept that the respondent immediately reacted and did her best to hold herself accountable.”

It censured Aiavao and imposed a condition on her teaching certificate that she must show the tribunal decision to any employer she works for in the next 18 months.

Centre manager Brell said she accepted Aiavao’s resignation but also offered her support.

“She is not a bad teacher. She’s wonderful with the children and it was just something that happened.”

Brell said the boy’s parents put in a written complaint but did not want Aiavao to be punished.