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I work at a private preschool, and our new PTO policy has me wondering how other schools handle paid time off.
We have scheduled school breaks throughout the year, including a week-long break and what I believe is a two-week Christmas break. Administration has also encouraged teachers to save their PTO for vacations, but many of us already plan trips around those scheduled breaks.
My concern is that if teachers feel they need to save their PTO for vacations, it leaves less flexibility for medical appointments, illness, unexpected family needs, or simply needing a personal day during the school year.

For those of you who work in preschools, private schools, or school districts:
Is your PTO separate from scheduled school breaks?
Are you expected to use PTO during days the school is closed?
Do you feel comfortable using PTO for appointments or sick days without feeling guilty?
Does your school provide separate paid holidays and school breaks, or are those factored into your overall compensation?
I’m genuinely curious how other schools handle this. I want to understand what is considered normal and whether other teachers have experienced similar policies.
Thanks for sharing your experiences!

Just a curious parent. It's wild to think people go to school, get a degree in ECE and any number of specialties to best serve and understand children, but most parents are just out here roughing it with no education in the field whatsoever, just leaving the hospital and raising our nations children on vibes, childhood trauma, and reddit posts lol

So out of curiosity, do you think that having an ece background has made parenting your own children a smoother/easier/more manageable experience? Either in the age range you work with or just as a whole?

Thanks for all the hard work you do!

I’m so mad. I’m the lead teacher and have had this foster child for only about a month now. My coworker came excitingly up to me to tell me she found how his bio dad is a third cousin of her ex boyfriend?? And has been messaging him. She told me, “the foster parents told him he goes to our daycare and he’s coming to the Halloween parade” and has been sending him links to baby clothes he should buy.

I’ve told the director and all I’ve been told is “I know, they’re cousins” no. They’re not.
It’s not a coincidence she reconnects with a long lost “family member” we all signed NDAs

I want to let the foster mom know.

My son, now almost 3 1/2, has been struggling since we started his preschool program back in June. The issues were mainly behavioral and we ultimately ended up taking him to the pediatrician back in September. Based on the school’s observations (and my own concerns at home), we left with a referral to OT and to a developmental pediatrician. His behaviors are consistent with sensory seeking, so we are hoping that OT will be helpful in addressing this. In the meantime, both the preschool and I have been communicating frequently about how we can help him. So far, we have implemented a weighted blanket, sensory circles and sensory mats. He also gets quite a bit of one on one from a staff member when he’s having difficulties.

For reference, his sensory seeking comes in the form of constantly touching other kids (pushing, grabbing, hair pulling, etc), seeking out big movements such spinning, climbing, jumping, throwing items and hollering out noises. Most recently I’ve also noticed him chewing his fingers and patting his ears. He seems to really struggle in the group setting and we think school is overstimulating at times.

We are so lucky to be part of a school that has gone above and beyond, but I fear this may no longer be a good match for my son. Most recently, we have had to shorten his days to 0830-1230, as he is too wound up at nap time to lay down (the school has tried many things to get him to lay down but it isn’t working). Quite frankly, a 12:30 pickup is less than ideal but I am struggling with the idea of removing him because I think he needs the social exposure and classroom time to help prepare him for kindergarten. I also need the break, as his energy levels are off the charts some days. My husband works 24 hour shifts AND we have a 10 month old, so preschool was helping me juggle my home life.

I’m really not sure what is in his best interest anymore and I’m feeling so lost. We had our OT eval last week, so once our insurance authorizes it, we will begin sessions every other week. Therapy will take time, but I’m not sure what to do in the interim. Do I keep him in the program and just keep seeing how it goes? They haven’t expressed any sort of desire for dismissal, but I also know my son is way more high needs than they typically accommodate. I have debated reaching out to the public school system, but I’m not really sure how that would be any more beneficial because I’ve already got him in OT.

Has anyone else been in this situation?

Educators, what do you suggest?

I am wondering how private preschools handle complex student needs (behavioral, language, non-verbal, special education) that extend beyond what teachers feel comfortable or qualified (or paid) to handle?
This is my first year working at a private preschool program after almost 10 years in public education. The school is mainly
Pre-k 3s.

The veteran teachers warned me that they have seen an increase in challenging behaviors the last 3-4 years. As a result, the more independent students do not get much teacher attention, and the curriculum has been heavily scaled back. This change is noticeable to families who have had multiple kids come through our program, which has always had an excellent reputation in the community.

This year, between the 3s classes there are multiple English Language Learner students who came in knowing zero English. Our program does not receive any ELL support. We have multiple non verbal students, and students without IEPS who require full day 1:1 teacher support due to behavioral issues. The teachers are feeling burned out, with a few saying they will leave mid year if things do not improve. We are paid very low, and don’t have the resources that the school district has. We are told to wait before talking to parents about asking for evaluations, and if the parents decline evaluations, we have no recourse. Our admin believes that all kids have a right to an education, and we all agree, however we don’t have the resources to help these kids, it’s taking away from the experience of our classes as a whole, there are definite safety concerns with some of the kids, and teacher moral is very low.

How do your private programs manage students who have needs beyond what the school can offer?

I work in a Montessori daycare with toddlers, and on Sunday I woke up with pink eye (which I mostly likely got from a toddler).

I emailed my boss/director letting them know that I wouldn't be able to come in on Monday (today) due to being highly contagious, especially because I hadn't started a course of antibiotics and by the time I did, it wouldn't have been 24 hours by the time I had to go into work.

My director tells me that I can still come in despite pink eye being highly contagious, but understands that I would want to take the day to rest and get better.
I get an email addressed to the whole daycare (other workers and parents) that there is a case of pink eye at the school (me, lol) and that kids are still allowed to come in as long as they're not in pain or discomfort.

This email made me really angry! Why are we allowing highly contagious diseases to spread so nonchalantly? Especially when pink eye is so easily transmittable.

For reference I work at a pretty bougie daycare... Parents would be able to easily afford keeping their children at home for a few days while their child stops being contagious. Also, I just started working here about a month ago, so I'm fairly new to what is passable for daycares compared to public school.

Anyway.

What are other people's experience with pink eye / other highly transmissible viruses in day care?

I feel like this is a trivial thing to complain about but I work in an infant/toddler room and I feel like we’re constantly running out of bibs. I just recently bought a brand new pack of 10 bibs and not even two weeks later only three out of the 10 I bought are left.
We also have spare clothes for when a child doesn’t have extra. The parents are supposed to return the borrowed clothes back along with their own extra clothes for their cubby, but most just keep them, and we now have almost no spare clothes. We’ve given noticed in the past about this too, to please send it back as we have limited supply of extra clothes for the classroom, but no one listens.

Also, when we ask for donations for bibs and clothes, it’s very rare that we actually get any. Yet when we buy things with our own money the parents just keep them for themselves.

I can feel the burnout creeping in. Also, I need to vent. I have a coworker who just started and he is AWFUL. He is not new to the field and my boss told us that he has a lot of experience. That's all well and good, but my room lead and I are the ones who do all the heavy lifting when it comes to classroom management. The guy just sits around and smiles like a dope.

He doesn't get down to the children's level, is constantly getting into power struggles, and we always have to be telling him what to do. We have to tell him to supervise or he will literally just sit down with one child, stare off into space, and smile. I told my boss that he is not a good fit for our classroom. And she ended up placing him permanently in our classroom.

ALSO! Before my last coworker quit, I asked my director for her shift, then I reminded her twice. And she said we would talk about it, but they ended up giving the shift to this guy. No explanation or talk with me.

Anyway, because it feels like I'm babysitting in an adult all day in addition to caring for all the children alone when my lead is on her break, planning, or gone for the day, I feel so burned out.

Our classroom has 10 children with challenging behaviour and we have 24 children. Our float staff can only do so much, too. Lately, I've fought with calling out because I'm so effing exhausted emotionally and mentally. I'm so stressed out and now I feel put out.

Hello guys,

I am currently a fourth year student gathering data for my dissertation on early childhood educators perspective and awareness of children's relationship with screens and digital media. More details in my survey are available. I would highly appreciate you taking 5/6 minutes to fill it out.

Thank you!

Survey: An Exploration of Children's Screen Time and Relationship with Digital Media – Fill out form

I want to start by saying we normally love our sons's daycare and haven't had any issues thus far. However, there are two new kids in my son's daycare class (he is in the 2-3 year old room). They are twins and having a hard time adjusting (understandable, not a big deal). Today, the teachers told me my son wouldn't nap because of the noise from the other kids. When I went to pick him up at 2:30, one of his teachers was laying on the floor next to his cot playing a game on her phone, and he was hanging over the side of his cot watching her. I'm not sure how long they had been like this.

I understand that the nap time is also the teacher's break, but I don't like the idea of my son just watching someone play games on their phone when he isn't able to sleep.

I don't think it happens often, but is it worth bringing to the lead teacher? Or the admin? Thanks!

Hi all! My 3 y/o daughter (turned 3 in Sept) just started at a preschool 2 days a week at the beginning of this school year. When she was a baby, she never took a pacifier and what ended up soothing her was touching her bellybutton. Ever since, whenever she is anxious or bored, she will touch her bellybutton. She says it helps her “feel safe”. I haven’t thought of it as an issue, just a weird quirk, but if it helps her feel better I don’t mind.

She told me that recently at school, her teachers have been telling her to stop touching her bellybutton. It’s never been a behavior I’ve discouraged and I’m wondering if I should be? Her teachers haven’t said anything to me about it, but I was thinking it would be something I would start discouraging when she was a little bit older.

Hi all, I have a strange new problem in my life regarding stress and dreams. (Remove this post if it's not a good fit for the forum, I am not sure if this is too heavy!)

Short and relevant background:

I have always experienced vivid dreams and sleepwalking. I started this position as a floater at a local center in my city 6 months ago. I had not never worked at a center before and while it was overwhelming, I thought I was starting to settle in and find my footing. The center has had a lot of turnover since I started and we have had a lot of very stressful weeks of bare bones, just enough to meet ratio, staffing. I am already looking at other jobs but I know that the longer I stay, the better it looks for job-hunting.

The Dreams:

I have developed a case of work week anxiety (starts in the evening on any day I'm off and have work the next) every single week since I started. With this anxiety, I also have started having really strong and vivid dreams regarding work. Like, thinking and "seeing" kids from my center that I need to keep track of and care for. This keeps me in a state of really poor sleep/pseudo wake all night and I'm usually fried the next day. These dreams end up waking my partner up at night as I'm walking around my house and talking to kids that aren't there or rattling around in the bed. They remind me of "school dreams" but I never walked around my home because of them, nor did they cause me so many nights of poor sleep.

Weirdly enough, I hardly ever experience them on nights after I worked a shift. Perhaps it's due to just being so exhausted I don't dream or something else. I fill my off-days with lots of activities and make a point to work out. My partner has been encouraging me to look for another job and get out of this place before it causes a nervous breakdown.

Is this normal for a first-time ECE job or do I need to get out? What do you do to disconnect and de-stress after work?

I posted a while ago on here about how I was hired for the role of assistant teacher but thought I was training to be a floater, but I was right. I’m a floater working 4 hours a day. This is incredibly frustrating because it’s a 20 minute drive to the center and I thought I could justify it by working full time, but I work 20 hours a week unless someone calls out.

The directors have repeatedly disregarded my schedule and hours I’m available. I work a second job at 5 three days a week, and they said they were totally fine with that during the interview. I even wrote down my hours available each day that I’m available AND made sure I got verbal confirmation from the directors that they understood. Now, they keep scheduling me until close (6) on the days I said I’m unavailable, and I keep having to have the same conversations with them about my availability to which they act like they had no clue. I have these same conversations with them at least 3 times a week and it’s maddening.

My hours are also very inconsistent. If I work from 10-2, they have me doing lunches and then the last hour if nobody needs potty I leave early so I’m not getting the full 4 hours anyway. They keep telling me that once they have enough kids in one of their mobile classrooms they will add me to that room immediately, but I have no idea how long that’ll take. Do I stick around for a bit and see if that happens or should I just start looking for other jobs just in case?

I know in any job really you have to be flexible, which is why I said I can do early mornings instead of the late afternoon on those days but they continue to ignore it. I’m left feeling unsupported and although a floater is the low end of the pole, I need something full time and can’t just wait the next 6 months until they’re ready for me.

Edit: thank you for the feedback! Will tell my director to get new cots

Really dislike how the mesh cots leave marks on their face.

Also when the younger toddlers try to roll over they get stuck because the dip is so deep.

Considering requesting nap mats but what do you guys think?

My 12 almost 13 mo old will be starting daycare in one week. His is my first child and this is his first time in daycare. He is still not off bottles. He refuses to drink milk from anything but a bottle and I'm starting to panic spiral.

We've tried since 12 mo to get him off the bottle. We've tried straw cup (drinks water fine from this), traditional sippy cup, silicone sippy cup, different style straw cup. Different temperature of milk, different ratios of breastmilk to milk. He may take one sip at most then rejects it and gets upset if I try to push it.

I'm concerned because we start daycare in one week and have had no success at home with this transition. I'm concerned he's going to get dehydrated with the lack of fluids and also not get enough calories since we've had weight gain issues since birth due to CMPA.

Any recommendations on how to make this transition? Is it possible for him to see other kids drinking from the cups and he will copy? Or will he get thirsty/hungry enough to drink it while at daycare? Will the workers help him or give him more water during the day instead?

Hi! I'm a FT nanny (former ECE teacher) and I do babysitting on the side.

I know it's common for ECE teachers to also do babysitting, so I was wondering if any of you would be willing to share any babysitting policies that you have?

Things like:

*Your sick or cancelation policies

*What you need from parents before booking

I am planning to go to community college and major in ECE after I graduate. I am absolutely terrible at math. completely terrible. I am not taking a math class for my final year in HS so I wanna take the extra time I have to study math and get better before I begin college so I won't struggle as much as I have in the past. What math classes did you guys have to take and what classes do you recommend I take if I'm given the option to choose?

Before I was a preschool teacher, I was a lawyer, so I often lurk around the legal subs. Now, if someone bit my kid (who does not attend my school), I would not be thrilled about it. I also don’t think I would shove the toddler on the ground to “save” my kid. I’d like to think I’d use my training to intervene appropriately. Just curious what others here think.

I think I’m putting in my notice tomorrow. I have multiple children with high needs in my classroom of 8 and my TA keeps getting pulled. Fine because I’m in ratio… except one elopes, one punches himself and the other hits kicks and punches me and throws toys all over the room and guess how I’m supposed to handle this.. AI sticker sheets and prizes! Cause extrinsic motivation works so well... Easy to handle all by myself and not dangerous at all. I’m given 10 extra kids in my room some days because the room next door has no lead and only a TA. So it’s me and my TA our 8 and 10 3 year old kids we barely know. the last two leads in there have been terrible and only lasted a few weeks. One lasted one day. The kids both mine and the ones next door all nap in my room every day. Except they don’t nap because they have no routine and don’t even know what classroom is theirs. My child with Autism is struggling because of lack of routine. When I express I need help I receive passive aggressive statements from management because I had two other people in the room to help me put them to sleep. The assistant director tries to help and says she has no idea what to do because it is so out of control. The parents are all mad because their children aren’t in their classroom. The management is rude to me and my TA despite us taking on significant extra work without being asked, literally went around and took pink day photos in every room except mine. My final straw is a parent is now mad at me because the zipper fell off her child’s coat, I had it in my pocket for one or two days and when I found it in my pocket I threw the zipper away.

I know that PSU offers free ones, but where else do you find trainings that aren’t crazy expensive? The center I’m at doesn’t pay for trainings.

SAHM is caring for my baby in her home with her baby (3 weeks older than my child). The contract we have doesn’t say anything about her providing food and until he started solids I was only providing pumped bottles of breastmilk. We pay her a nanny share rate (higher than an in home daycare).

When her son first started solids I broached the subject and she didn’t commit herself to it (understandable). Before I ask again (if I do), just curious for other opinions. It’s kind of a gray area where in some ways she’s like my son’s nanny in terms of the contract, we gave her a week’s pay for a holiday gift, etc. But it’s also in her home and in home daycares tend to provide meals and snacks.

Plus, she’s making the food anyway for her son and it’s homemade like what I am sending in anyway. So it would be easy for her since she’s preparing it anyway? It would be fresher and easier than me packing food everyday but maybe I’m overthinking. Thanks!