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- Rekha Basu
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After a fatal car crash last May took the lives of two young Ankeny children and left their mother hospitalized for five months, the director of a local day care center made a unilateral decision. She offered free tuition for the lone surviving child, 3-year-old Chase DeJoode.
But Shelley Huss, the beloved director of Ankeny's Childtime Day Care Center for over 20 years, didn't tell her Michigan-based bosses. They found out through an audit last month. And last week, they fired her.
Huss' termination, and her Robin Hood-like actions have generated strong responses on social media websites. Some people are planning a protest against the Ankeny Childtime center on Thursday.
Huss couldn't be reached for this column but she told KCCI Friday that the Childtime corporate office had allowed her to give the family only a week of free child care and she didn't think that was enough: "You're not often given an opportunity to provide support to a family that needs it so much.... And I'd do it again in a heartbeat."
Troy DeJoode, the child's father, said in a statement to the TV station that the family is surprised and shocked at Huss' dismissal. He said her actions had provided his son, who wouldn't see his mother for months, comfort and stability, helping his peace of mind.
A spokeswoman for the Michigan-based corporation, which owns seven day care centers in Iowa - including several under the name La Petite - said she couldn't discuss personnel situations. But she sent over a statement that said, "Unfortunately, we recently learned that ... policies were not being followed by our director, which resulted in us having to end that relationship." It said Huss' firing was based on "continued policy violations." Huss said she hasn't violated any other policies and that, in over 20 years, she received only one other reprimand. She has won several awards, including one last summer for surpassing revenues. There's even a plaque outside the center honoring her.
Huss told KCCI she was offered money to keep silent about her firing, but refused it. Stacy DeWalt, the Childtime spokeswoman, declined to respond. Opinions are split on whether Huss' actions were justified. "It wasn't the director's decision to make," one person weighed in on the Register's Moms Like Me website. "She disobeyed her superiors and basically stole from the business to the tune of about $10K probably."
Someone countered, "If this daycare professes to be all about the community and caring for the children, they have an absolutely horrid way of showing it."
Even protest organizer Paula Poland, who doesn't know Huss, says what she did was wrong. The protest, she said, is "directed at corporate suits and profit over human compassion."
Did Huss do the right thing? Yes for the family, no for her employer. The real problem is that the company doesn't see the two as synonymous. The anger over Huss' firing reflects frustration at the disconnect between a local leader responsive to a community crisis, and an out-of-state corporation that won't let too much goodwill interfere with profits. If the day care were locally owned, its owners would likely have interacted with people in town and felt more investment in being seen as good local citizens.
Ironically, it's easier for a large corporation than a small business to write off the cost of one child for 10 months, for public relations, if nothing else. As Poland suggests, Huss' bosses could have quietly reprimanded her and then claimed credit for their largesse to the DeJoodes.
The story also comes as lawmakers are fixing to scrap the state's free voluntary preschool program. Maybe if we looked on the education of young children as a universal right rather than a privilege, such a situation wouldn't arise.
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