Daycare teacher salary

Sunshine+Luv · August 2012

Can anyone enlighten me? I just did the math for what we pay ($185 a week) and the number of kids and workers, and my bet is the teachers barely make $8 an hour.

It just seems like such hard work for that amount of money, and his teachers are wonderful.

Do you think that is a typical salary for this career? I live in Charlotte, nc. MCOL.

puppylove64 · August 2012

I think that sounds about right. I have a friend that works at a daycare and from my understanding, she has been there several years and has extra duties as a lifeguard in the summer and makes 10 to 12 an hour

Btw I live in a small to medium town 45 minutes outside Atlanta

Musiclover2012 · August 2012

SIL was a daycare teacher and just quit to nanny at a home instead, I am fairly certain she was making $8-9 an hour?

katieh1017 · August 2012

We pay $245 per week and L is there 45-50 hours per week. If she is there 45 hours it comes out to $5.55 per hour. She gets awesome care, the place is great but I think DC teachers are probably way underpaid. I am in Orlando and this is on the higher end per week.

kandrze1 · August 2012

I briefly worked a daycare about 5 years ago and I made 10 an hour. I don't remember if I made a little more because I had my teacher certification or not.

AshleyDG83 · August 2012

I worked at a daycare when I was 18-19 and made minimum wage (when it was $5.75/hour). I was lead teacher for the 2 year old room. I lived in a smaller town, so I'm sure that's why it was so low, but people don't pick that profession for the paycheck. I started my own in home daycare a couple years later after getting certified and made a lot more. There was also a ton more stress too.

Sunshine+Luv · August 2012

AshleyDG83:
I worked at a daycare when I was 18-19 and made minimum wage (when it was $5.75/hour). I was lead teacher for the 2 year old room. I lived in a smaller town, so I'm sure that's why it was so low, but people don't pick that profession for the paycheck. I started my own in home daycare a couple years later after getting certified and made a lot more. There was also a ton more stress too.

I am sure you are right, about not picking the profession for the pay check. And I can tell the teachers love those babies, and enjoy what they do. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to pay more per week, but I do feel like the teachers deserve more money for what they do.

Of course I used to be an 8th grade teacher, and was underpaid like all the other staff, but I loved it.

laurack · August 2012

holy crap thats terrible. $8/hr? yikes.

I wonder if when you go to a high priced center while the cost is higher, do they pay the staff more or do they just make more profit.

So the place we looked at is $400/wk. $350-400/wk is the going rate around here for centers. However I know people who use a home daycare and pay only $250. So I wonder if the home daycare people make less money or if it's all the same, just that the centers have a lot more overhead and admin costs that eat up the money.?

AshleyDG83 · August 2012

Sunshine+Luv:
AshleyDG83:
I worked at a daycare when I was 18-19 and made minimum wage (when it was $5.75/hour). I was lead teacher for the 2 year old room. I lived in a smaller town, so I'm sure that's why it was so low, but people don't pick that profession for the paycheck. I started my own in home daycare a couple years later after getting certified and made a lot more. There was also a ton more stress too.
I am sure you are right, about not picking the profession for the pay check. And I can tell the teachers love those babies, and enjoy what they do. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to pay more per week, but I do feel like the teachers deserve more money for what they do.
Of course I used to be an 8th grade teacher, and was underpaid like all the other staff, but I loved it.

Teachers are definitely underpaid. It's so sad!

AshleyDG83 · August 2012

laurack:
holy crap thats terrible. $8/hr? yikes.

I wonder if when you go to a high priced center while the cost is higher, do they pay the staff more or do they just make more profit.

So the place we looked at is $400/wk. $350-400/wk is the going rate around here for centers. However I know people who use a home daycare and pay only $250. So I wonder if the home daycare people make less money or if it's all the same, just that the centers have a lot more overhead and admin costs that eat up the money.?

As far as I know, yes the higher priced centers pay their staff more. When I lived in Georgia, I considered commuting to Atlanta because the pay was so much better, but ended up going down a different path career-wise.

JaimeG183 · August 2012

I worked in a daycare and made minimum wage. People slowly got raises but never made good money. They did offer benefits to ft employees.

it was way less than a teacher salary which isnt great either

Patella1129 · August 2012

There is generally a big turnover rate for day care workers and one of the reasons is poor pay. I made $13 an hour at the center I worked for, but it was a highty-toighty, super fancy "early childhood education center." Our pay was way higher than most in the area. The tuition was around $400 a week. I made $1 more an hour too because I worked a split shift (7:00-12:00 then 3:00-6:00--I basically had a 3 hour lunch break)

kistjenn@yahoo.com · August 2012

Oh, I know our DC people make crap. We pay $425/mo for C and $375/mo for A, total of $800/mo (which is cheap compared to what everyone seems to pay here). I did the math once based on the number of hours the girls are there and the DC makes $1.91/hr off of A and $2.23/hr off of C.

The owner told me awhile back that she makes about $5.50/hr.....yikes!

51bobcat · August 2012

I worked at a day care that charged 314 a week for infant care. I was the lead teacher in an infant room and made 9 an hour and I was one of the few with a degree and 1st aid CPR certified. Now when I worked at a center in college I was paid 8.50 as a student worker and later 10 as an assistant teacher. sorry for any typos, I'm on my phone!

kasper923 · August 2012

I just spotted an infant teacher position in a hospital day care center and the pay was 32k.

outrunthemoon · August 2012

Yep, I work daycare & I have a bachelors (although it's elementary ed). My pay is more than that but not by too much. It's $212 a week for infants/toddlers for full time; it's a little less for pre-school.

The pay sucks but I love my kids. Unfortunately I'm always on the job hunt, I can't sustain a life on this unless DF get's another job with a fat paycheck. I will cry when I ever find another job. We want a house & more children and it won't happen on this paycheck.

ETA: The other thing I hate about daycare is that some parents think we are just glorified babysitters. I can't speak for all daycares but...

1. your babysitter probably gets paid more an hour to babysit than we get.

2. Where I work we are an accredited school. We have lesson plans, in-services, professional development on Saturday mornings, etc. We do assessments on children and base our lesson plans on those.

Sure we get to play with kids, but we have structured time where we are teaching too. No it's not at desks & no we don't have tests. But your young children are learning how to hold a pencil, catch a ball, jump on one foot on top of their colors, abc's and numbers. We also don't (at least at my workplace) get planning time. Yes there is nap time but the lights are off and we have to be in the classroom with your children. So we take work home just like teachers and assess and do lessons.

Plus to add to it, some children are with us more during the day than they are with their parents. Would you want someone who was -just a babysitter- to spend 8+ hours a day with your children? okay...*end rant*

marriedsisterofbride · August 2012

I was a director at a center and am now a school bus driver. I was making about $12.00 an hour when you rounded it out because I was on salary BUT I was only suppose to work 25-30 hours per week. I ended up working about 60-65. Everytime I needed coverage for a room, people disappeared. I was the one doing the long shifts, chasing parents for payments, dealing with DCYF.

I make $19.00 an hour now, have summers and vacations off PAID and work a split shift so that I can see my baby in between. Although right now I HATE it because it is time away from LO and the school year is new so I am running around, it's really not a bad job.

outrunthemoon · August 2012

marriedsisterofbride:
I was a director at a center and am now a school bus driver. I was making about $12.00 an hour when you rounded it out because I was on salary BUT I was only suppose to work 25-30 hours per week. I ended up working about 60-65. Everytime I needed coverage for a room, people disappeared. I was the one doing the long shifts, chasing parents for payments, dealing with DCYF.

I make $19.00 an hour now, have summers and vacations off PAID and work a split shift so that I can see my baby in between. Although right now I HATE it because it is time away from LO and the school year is new so I am running around, it's really not a bad job.

Yeah, we don't have summers off. We are year round. We have a few paid holidays and only get 5 vacation days and 5 sick days. We do get insurance but it's pretty much a joke.

dubs3 · August 2012

I work at an upperclass early ed. child care centers, and I also have my bachelor's in k12 education. I mostly work with infants, and I make 13/hr, but that's after 2 years of being there...I don't like it and don't think of it as a career, but I know what an important job it is...people trust me to take care if their babies every day, and I know how hard and scary that is. Even though it's just a job for right now, and it doesn't pay well, I take it seriously and do everything I can to make sure those babies are happy and safe.

Browneyedhunni85 · August 2012

When I worked in childcare most of the new hires made like $7-8 an hour. It's really sad and there are usually no benefits. Salary was one of the reasons I left the field. It was great while I was going to college and living at home. I worked front office and they worked with my schedule. You cannot raise a family on $8 an hour.

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