At first glance it is a time when everyone seems to have a snift, and many people are relaxing with colds, flu, or other unpleasant suffering.
Staff absence is rarely seamless in any setting, but K-12 schools have at least designed to support such occurrence. In the public school district, there is a preparation for alternative teachers that can be used when the illness spreads and the staff begins to call out.
On the other hand, early care and education do not have such infrastructure. And the reality affects the operation of programs all year round, as well as the cold and flu season.
Because the shortage of teachers is increasing strict In early learning Since the setting pandemic, the previous workaround from the hole in the staffing has declined. In most cases, the program does not have a personnel buffer that he once went to, and as a result, if someone gets sick or injured, it goes without saying that there is little error margin.
Most experts can take illness and other paid leave. They are also given the power to take the vacation when they need it. Lauren Hogan, who states that it is not for early care and education, is a strategic advisor to the NAEYC Association (NAEYC), a non -profit organization that defends childhood teachers and staff.
“We can’t afford to give such support to educators who spend all time in a small reproductive factory where we are always sick,” said we were frank. Say.
“It’s a physical, emotional, and psychological task, and we don’t provide rest from the system or policy level,” she added. Educators in childhood, “I can think of what I can do only to see another day.”
Scramble without a submarine
If the staff missed the job, if there is no better backup plan, many early learning programs are forced to be “familiar and poor”, and Wonderschool’s new government initiative. Jason Moss, the person in charge, says. We operate an alternative education pool for more than a year in Mississippi.
“It’s scrambled,” he says, “And it’s painful.”
Many infant educators and providers have a personal story that gives this dynamics color.
Keledawn Jones, a home -based child -based child -based child -based child -based provider, has begun to find a person who gets pregnant with her first child and helps to run a program while she is away. Remember that it was given. Hire someone to have time or to replace her. Neither of them was economically feasible for Jones.
Nancy Sylvester, an executive director of the center -based program in Jackson, Mississippi, had members of the center, including her husband and adult sons, a friend of fellow churches, and her own parent S. You can fill in for the absent staff when she is tied.
“Very sad,” Sylvester says. “You come down where you need a warm body to confirm that your child is safe.”
Currently, Nicole Lazarte, a NAEYC policy and advanced communication expert, has recently worked as an infant teacher at an infant center in northern Virginia. She says that during the time as a classroom teacher, she says she does not want to return to work within a few days and leave her colleagues in LURCH.
“I don’t even expect someone to enter,” she says. She didn’t appear every day, so she knew she had already asked her over -stretched staff to take over the more than she could.
Before the pandemic, her program means that there were 10 to 15 teachers in the “florter” staff. In other words, it will help you move between infants, infants, and kindergarten classrooms to maintain the ratio of adults and children required for state license regulations. These teachers also insulated the program due to the confusion of the absence of the staff. If the person in the kindergarten classroom had to miss a day of work, the floater was filled all day in the classroom.
However, since the pandemic, since the shortage of the field, these floers have been hired to fill the vacant seats of classroom teachers. And there were not enough people who were interested in childhood work to replace the florter.
“So we are watching [staffing] Insufficient. So we are seeing such a high level of burning syndrome, “she says. Eventually, “You have to leave for your own personal happiness. Not because you want to, but your body is sacrificed. Your mental health is sacrificed. Masu.”
All three women mentioned the “warm body” problem. Adults who have passed the background check so that many programs who have been trained can maintain the ratio and keep the classroom open without working with the children. I will also reach.
“I don’t want to hire a warm body,” said Jones in Indiana. “I want a person trying to talk [the kids]We interact with them, joke, and build a relationship with them. “
The emotions are shared by almost everyone in the field, so even on the day when many educators should be at home, they realize that they are appearing in their work.
“It leads to the overall rude we see for childhood educators,” said Naeyc’s Hogan. “Yeah, warm body is really needed by children, so parents can go to work.”
Solve the sub problem
This is not one of all the difficult tasks faced with early care and education.
“I think it can be solved,” said Erica Philips, an executive director of the National Family Childcare Association (NAFCC). “i will do it.”
However, she adds that the problem is not only to create an alternative teacher pool, as the K-12 school district is doing. The real task is to find and judge teachers to fill the pool.
In an environment where full -time childhood teachers are already rare resources, it is more difficult to find people with appropriate training and experience to acquire one -time educational shift with inconsistent wages. She says.
Still, some efforts are underway.
a lot Subpool We united from the provider to solve the problem for ourselves. Philips knows the subpools of Arkansas and Indiana.
In the countryside and Vermont State in New Hampshire, new career development programs for infant educators in the region are trying to solve the demands of short -term submarines and long -term teachers at once.
The Area Initial Care Education Association (ECEA) heard that some of the 130 early learning programs in the network were desperately needing submarines. According to the group Executive Director Amiejux, “We can’t do any more meditation and mindfulness. Workshops are needed. We need a break.”
“They have a PTO that they can’t use,” says Brooks, “Because it closes the classroom.”
ECEA has launched a carrier scultivator program to support the construction of pipelines for future full -time child educators. Participants need to work on all necessary health and safety training and judge for 10 weeks (soon 12 years old), and then work in a university course and work with at least one eight hours of shift. Register with the subpool. Before completing the program.
Many career cultivatives participate in more shifts.
Katie Hopps, who manages ECEA subpool programs and software, filled 325 employment last year. She acknowledges that this is only about a quarter of the job listed for help -“We can definitely use more submarines,” but the program has been so far. It is still a result because only 35 people have graduated.
The ECEA subpool is hired in a full -time employee in a design and childhood, so ultimately remove the subsidy cycle from the program. But Brooks said that the pipeline was replaced on a daily basis, which was essential.
“Creating a subpool does nothing,” Brooks says. “You have to nurture it.”
One of the successful programs is to obtain a set wage ($ 15.50 per hour) to pay the ECEA network program director to pay a submarine. This allows Brooks to compete with a “large -scale corporate program” with “small church livelihood programs.”
Wonderschool of Child Care Solutions Provider has launched Subpool In the fall of 2023, after hearing from the Mississippi leader that an infant medical provider with more than 1,000 licenses in the state faced the acute lack of alternative teachers.
According to Moss of Wonderschool, it has grown into one of Japan’s largest childhood subpools. Since the beginning of Initiative, Wonderschool has applied for more than 10,000 people to become a Mississippi alternative. Today, about 450 people are potentially potentially and potentially potential. In the first 14 months, they had 5,800 employment equivalent to about 40,000 hours.
Jackson’s provider, Sylvester, has been using WondersChool Subpool since its release.
“As soon as I heard it, I was ready,” she says. “I knew how desperately I needed.”
According to Sylvester, the staff has been difficult to get since the pandemic, and substitutes are almost impossible. “That was a real problem.”
Sylvester may need three or four submarines a day. She says the subpool meets the needs.
When Sylvester needs a sub, she posts a jobist on the platform and provides details such as which age group to work and the number of days required.
“As soon as I put it out,” Sylvester says. Get 10 people immediately.
(The submarine sets a geographical radius on their account and indicates how much they will go for work.)
Sylvester allows you to choose to automatically accept the first person to claim a job, or to check who can pass through and who can use it. If she usually does the latter, she is already working together and recognizes the names of a good experience, she chooses them.
Moss explains that the sub -forms are already screened and Wonderschool is onboard. Wonderschool is in accordance with the state requirements for alternative teachers.
Moss adds that individuals who use Subpool tend to be classified into one of the four categories. They are college students or recent graduates who are interested in early care and education. They retired from childhood educators with flexibility to pick up strange shifts here and there. They are mothers at home where their children are at school. Or, they are looking for the second job on the schedule they can choose.
Mississippi’s pilot is going well, saying Moss says that Wonderschool is currently talking to a “state” who wants to bring a program to a childhood program.
“I think we will be quite busy,” he says.
