Reply to Wait. Why are childcare workers in this area so poorly paid?

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[quote=Anonymous]Former director here.

https://www.costofchildcare.org/ is a great tool to explain.

I was a director for 10 years in high quality programs in DC & VA (federal, university, all NAEYC-accredited) where we managed to pay teachers reasonably well, with benefits and etc. But our space was free. About 85-90% of revenue went straight to salary / benefits. We tried to keep tuition at a price that reflected the true quality of care. Occasionally we had years with good fundraising, or 100% enrollment, that allowed us to sock away reserves (which we needed, for example, during shutdown).

One thing most posters forget is that you need lots of extra bodies.

A twos room may have 12:2 ratio, but that doesn’t mean there are only 2 teachers. Most centers are open 11 hours/day, so you need to cover all those hours, plus breaks where there still need to be 2 people. Plus if you’re giving generous PTO (say 25 days), you need another person to cover all those hours. And you always need some wiggle room in case a teacher quits so you can still meet ratio while hiring.

Now, you also have to consider feeder rooms, and the fact that 3s and 4s rooms lose children to free PreK. So if you want 20 4s (1 class / 2 teachers), you need 24 3s (2 classes / 4 teachers), 24 2s (same), 24 toddlers (only now it’s 3 or 4 classes with 3 teachers each). To feed into that, you need 3 or 4 infant classes with 3 teachers each. So a center with ~ 116 kids (anything less is almost impossible to break even) has about 31 full time classroom teachers. Add 4-5 floaters and 3-4 admin for about 40 FTE. That’s 1:3 not the 1:10 you were basing your budget on.

Then you budget for 85% enrollment so that you can stay in black if kids come and go.

Then add professional development, tuition reimbursement, retirement, and all the other things that make a professional program. And food service— which was always one of the top expenses after salary. That’s not including materials, supplies, capital expenses...

It’s not a profitable field, and teachers are subsidizing the true cost of care through low salaries. [/quote]

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