From the moment we clock on we are in ratio with a room full of kids, until the number of kids drops and we’re sent home for the day, sometimes before the scheduled end of our shift. No allowances for prep time or paperwork. This is a problem because the paperwork demands are high. Multiple daily safety checklists, diaper cream release forms (renewed weekly), “Milestones” (imagine the DRDP rewritten by a committee of people with business and marketing degrees) and weekly lesson plans. In addition, large classroom displays have to be updated monthly. This is all in addition to preparing educational activities for the children and addressing the regular caregiving, cleaning, laundry and classroom organization that needs to be done. Somewhere in there we try to find time to meaningfully connect with the kids.
There was a time when we could manage to keep up with the chores by working like crazy during nap time, then someone realized centers could cut back on the duties of the custodians and save money by having teachers mop during nap time and take out all the garbage several days a week.
It isn’t unusual to have after-hours social activities, such as holiday celebrations for the families, staff attendance is mandatory. Annual conferences are scheduled at the parents’ convenience, teachers may have to return to school after their scheduled shift to meet with them. President’s Day is a mandatory inservice day, ostensibly for teaching us new skills, in reality it’s hours of customer service approaches and corporate propaganda wrapped up in a thin veil of pseudo-educational language. There are also frequent after-hours staff meetings, occasionally on Saturdays. We are not paid overtime for any of this.
Annual pay raises are tiny, and they’re “merit based” so we have to jump through hoops to get them. If we use more than the maximum number of permitted sick days in a given year we may forfeit our right to a raise. Turnover is heavy and salaries don’t keep up with the cost of living so eventually, when current salaries stop attracting new applicants it isn’t unusual to find that a new co-worker with less experience than current teachers is being paid more. This deficit is not made up for in subsequent raises.
I don’t have personal experience with the college reimbursement program, but a co-worker was disappointed to discover that the director decides which courses count towards the program and only chose to pay for classes which directly applied to ECE. Get more information before you count on this “perk.”
We have very limited freedom to personalize our classroom. We are representing a brand and appearances are a priority. Teaching is a challenge because individual children are shuttled back and forth between classrooms daily to balance out numbers in order to use staff efficiently. Oh, and we do our job on camera with parents live-streaming via an app.
LCG has seriously compromised the quality of care and education for the kids, and the quality of life for teachers and staff, settling instead for the appearance of these things. They market us as teachers and treat us like babysitters. The brochures and posters are gorgeous, I wish I worked in whatever fictional school they based their materials on.
