Sudden Turnover at Daycare

You know, I have worked in daycare settings in the past. Child care typically does have an (unfortunately) very high turnover rate,depending on the center. Sometimes a lousy director is hired and makes poor hiring choices; we had that happen-- good teachers found other centers to work at and lesser teachers stayed or were hired. At that time, an unhappy parent approached me and invited me to start a small preschool for her neighborhood, so I left.

At other times, young people are hired on who think 'working with kids will be easy'-- there is a sort of idea that 'anyone' can do child care, and then they discover that there is a lot of grunt work to be done, cleaning and sanitizing, diaper changes or ensuring that all the kids wash their hands, and all of the social coaching that goes with working with youngsters. For inexperienced workers, this may be more job than they thought it would.

I don't know if this is a 'normal' thing. Kids going to high school/college are usually hired as floaters or assistants, but not leads. To me, it seems strange to start in a new room and immediately start changing the environment. That would suggest that either things weren't correctly laid out to begin with or that the teacher was trying to put her stamp on the room right away. More experienced teachers would likely try to help the transition by keeping the classroom environment the same and then talking with the co-teacher about it when she returned. So, it might be worth it to discreetly ask the former teacher what's up. She might give you some insight. I know that when we had a bad director hired on, I was willing to give some observations and insights to any parent who cared to ask. One has to do this fairly objectively and diplomatically, but if you ask some carefully worded questions, you might get the information you are seeking.

It's sad for the kids. But daycare has high turnover. The pay is very low. I wish it was like in some other countries where the pay is high, and a lot of training and credentials are needed. After all, this is an important job with the future of our country!

I think that established places often keep people 20+ years. That's a very good sign. And these older teachers tend to be awesome (not always of course). They don't stay for the pay. This is not "tenure" like in schools.
Sure, in school there is a lot less turnover. Normally your child gets the same teacher ALL year. Sometimes women leave to have babies, etc. though.

Other centers might have great staff too, but these young people are (naturally) looking to make a living and do the best the can, so they leave for better pay or opportunities.

I give the workers a lot of credit. Day in and out they care for the kids.

Where my young son is at camp, most of the teachers are wonderful and radiate warmth. One rarely smiles and seems high-strung. I am sad they hired her since it's not an ideal fit for the kids, in my opinion. I would think that if you interview enough people it'd be possible to avoid hiring someone like that!

I would see if it settles down. Promoting someone from a lead to her own room may be a way to keep someone they like. My DD's 1 yr old teacher used to be an aid and they gave her a class once she finished school. So some of it could also be a good thing.

If this was normal suburbia I'd say a positive yes, this should be over after school starts.

BUT since it's military related they don't work on an August to May schedule. So I'd suggest you speak to the director. Just ask her what is going on, sometimes a lot of transfers come in all at once and other times they are not so obvious.

In my opinion that is not normal. I would try to ask questions discreetly to see what’s going on. Change is hard on kids since they are creatures of habit and routine. Furthermore, not all personalities get along so finding the right dynamic in any given room is a constant work in progress.

Our first daycare very rarely moved staff because it was so enormously disruptive. On a regular basis they floated the ladies around a bit so the kids would learn to be comfortable with all the staff. However, the understanding I had was it was a swap for an hour or so every few days. For instance a toddler lady would switch with a baby lady for an hour. Even then they admitted it was a little tricky because some kids really resist change and any change alters the room dynamic. However, they said in the long run it helped when they had staff out for the day. The kids knew the ladies and so having a sub was less traumatic. Instead of Ms. Cindy being here for an hour; she's here all day. Ok the kids would say and go on about their business. When staff left, the parents were told at least two weeks out and the kids were prepped for the departure. In general I thought our old daycare did an outstanding job of doing a difficult job and making it look effortless. Caring for kids is hard work and getting qualified, loyal, loving care providers is a huge task.

At our current daycare they are constantly moving the staff around and it is driving everyone nuts. I can tell the kids struggle in the classrooms (not just mine but others by peeking in the windows when I walk around), not all of the staff is a good pairing so the dynamic is out of whack between the adults, the stress levels of all parties involved is high and the list goes on. This upheaval is one of the reasons we are leaving in fact. Kids need to learn to be flexible but this constant state of change in staff is unacceptable because it is too disruptive. For me this is a management issue. They are hiring the wrong staff, not supporting the staff they have and/or some other mismanagement issue. The bottom line is it affecting my kids and I don’t want to accept that any longer.

Hopefully your staffing situation settles down and this whole episode was a blip on the radar. I would keep an eye on the situation, though. Good luck.

hard to say. i'm betting that most daycares go through these disruptive periods pretty frequently, though. daycare is notoriously high expectations coupled with low pay, unfortunately.
khairete
S.