I'm really hoping this will be my last year teaching preschool. I'm stretched way too goddamn thin at this center I'm at. I'm at school 8-5 every day, teaching 15 kids, 4 of whom are on the Autism spectrum and qualify for services (but aren't receiving them due to COVID). We stay in one room all day, and maybe if it's sunny and over 40° we go outside for a max of 30 minutes a day. It's fucking depressing, and I have no power to change things because almost all aspects of the day are determined by corporate. It's incredibly frustrating knowing what small changes would make a huge difference for these kids and being unable to actually implement them. After years of having a vague notion of wanting to teach music at some point, I finally looked into what goes into getting licensed in various places, and it turns out VT has a pretty solid alternative peer review based licensing program. I'm making it my goal to put together a teaching portfolio and pass the Praxis teaching tests by the summer so I can get licensed for the upcoming school year and get the fuck out of CT, and out of the "childcare solutions" racket.
There is a long running parent cooperative in my neighborhood. They used to have meetings at my coffee shop. I have rarely met a group of people who were as petty, backstabbing and bitchy as these people were. We found a preschool in the neighborhood that with 5-6 kids taught by a lady with a masters in education that was reasonably priced. It was great. I like paying for things with money, I hate sweat equity situations. I don't mind trading coffee for services but It'd be hard to pay for pre-school like that.
My daughter did preschool at the local YMCA. The program was excellent, as were the teachers. The administration was awful. Once we learned how poorly the teachers were being compensated, my wife and her friend organized a parent revolt. After about a month the administration gave them a raise of a couple of something like 20%. They could have given them more. That said, the preschool director and our favorite teacher moved on once opportunities arose. We should straight up double the pay for all educators in the US as a start. It is very important and taxing work, and the consequence of quality couldn't be higher.