Website offers anonymous child-care reviews
CBC News
July 30, 2010

A new website that allows parents to post anonymous comments about daycare centres and elementary schools is getting a thumbs down from educators and child-care advocates.

The ... List allows parents to post anonymous comments about daycare centres and elementary schools ….

The president of the Canadian Childcare Federation, a partnership of provincial and territorial organizations, is not enthused with the idea.

Critics of The ... List say an anonymous forum is no place to discuss daycare issues. "I always have problems with the word anonymous, realizing that not every family is going to be 100 per cent satisfied with any level of child-care service or education," Don Giesbrecht told CBC News.

"Really, it's so important for the issues of quality and for the issues of education and the well-being of children, not just yours but of your neighbours and your friends and your relatives to bring these issues up in an open forum, not an anonymous forum."

Geisbrecht points out that most provinces provide information about licensing issues on their websites. Beyond that he says it's more practical to talk to neighbours about their experiences with a particular centre.

"If they're already there what better recommendation for concerns that could be brought forward than to talk to the other parents who have children in that program."

Geisbrecht's concerns are echoed by Vancouver school trustee Sharon Gregson, who doesn't think daycares and schools should be subject to postings like restaurant reviews.

"I think that child care is much more important than a plate of pasta. It's far too important to rely on anonymous postings on a website."

"If you're talking about something as important as a daycare or a school, there's so much more complexities involved. I don't think that you can reduce a description of a school to a rating like five stars or seven out of 10," she told CBC News.