Ethical Dilemmas

1. You are the director of a church-based center. The church requires that all staff adhere to the moral guidelines set forth in the Bible. You know that one of your most gifted teachers has been struggling as a single parent and recently moved in with her boyfriend.

2. To meet accreditation requirements you need 1 more teacher with a CDA credential. You have had few responses to newspaper ads. One of your teachers just completed the CDA requirements and announced, “It was no big deal. I just handed in Daphne’s final project that she used last year. They never knew.”

3. You’ve had to “lay down the law” with your staff. You reviewed rules and guidelines and announced that not following them would result in disciplinary action. The owner’s niece is taking on extra duties and will become your assistant. She has been warned twice about using her cell phone during work hours. You just caught her for the third time but no one else noticed.

4. You have only two teachers who are willing to “close”. Even though there are only a handful of children during the last half hour, for safety reasons you want a minimum of 2 staff on site. You just learned that the closers have been taking turns leaving 30 minutes prior to closing.

5. Centers in your area can qualify for monetary incentives if they score well on an assessment. You appealed previous assessment scores that were based on erroneous observations and won, resulting in higher scores. This time, however, they wrongly credited your staff for credentials they did not have. The incentive check is now significantly more.