lead teacher

preschool teacher

assistant teacher

bus driver

assistant director

Children of America

This organization represents the 'Worst of them All.' When I was hired as a School Director (I was 5th director in an 18 month period), I was lied to during my orientation.  The previous director did not have the proper degree required. Despite the company posting the position for an aasistant director, they knew they needed my education in order to maintain the license. They somehow thought it was ethical to use me in that way. When the company decided to let the previous director go, they offered me the role as school director. After being placed in that position,  my world changed. Not only did they not pay my worth for the complete mess that the company created, they also forced me to continue to work in a hostile work environment with an assistant director who was more disrespectful than a pimp. Despite the corporate being advised of my situation,  they rather decided to wait until staff heard the disrespect and reported it to corporate.  The situation was still not addressed in a manner that helped my daily work conditions. The corporate office refused to listen to the director and began a thought through plan of attack. They sent representatives to the school to tell me how much I wasn't doing. In fact, that was their demise of me. They stuck to their story of me not performing despite the number of complaints received about the assistant. Granted, my late nights, weekend work, etc. were all in vain. The final straw was them sending my immediate manager to visit the school and terminate me. I wasn't surprised,  more hurt that the poor families were surely going to need an administrator that truly cared about their children.  The company constantly ignored state laws related to child care in NC. The company neglected to notify parents about important matters that affected their children.  The really sad part about the school was that a majority of the past families enrolled next door. Families need support and consistency.  Don't you think if there were problems, they should have been trying to work it all out? Why wouldn't they? Now, this poor little school has to suffer because of the negligence promoted from within. So sad. None of these scenarios even touch the time when the corporate office visited and looked me in my eyes and told me how much the corporate office "Hates" me! Of course that was in addition to me not having bulletin boards with posted "teacher-driven" projects on them. And telling me to create systems in the same sentence with me not following their processes. Which one is it???? Oh, and the time frame  was all within a month. So-new director-cleaning up all the violations from previous staff and placed on an action plan within the first 30 days. Please be careful either working or attending this school.

The Good:
The facility itself is wonderful. Clean and  full of resources for the children. The teachers work hard and have a genuine love for the children and families that attend there. The children are well cared for. Sound policies and procedures make for a very safe environment for the children and staff. Opportunity for advancement is good. 

The Bad:
Management from the head office is not concerned about employees. Emphasis is on money. Every corporation is concerned with the bottom line which is natural but expectations of the staff are unreasonable compared to the compensation. Benefits are minimal. Employees are underpaid and undervalued. Teachers are paid very little for the vast amount of work they do. Onsite management is expected to clock out staff immediately as children leave and ratios drop. The time needed for cleaning the classrooms, putting up the required displays, doing lesson plans, assessments and portfolios often exceeds what can be completed during naptime and so is frequently done on the teachers own time, unpaid and this is actually expected by the company. 
Center directors are hired at a lower than reasonable wage with promises that regular quarterly bonuses will supplement and be part of that salary but these never materialize. Despite hitting required targets, out of 20 promised bonuses, only 3 were paid out. Onsite management is also expected to shuffle children from room to room whenever possible, in order to cut teachers earlier than their allotted shifts. 

Feedback from head office to centers focuses solely on negatives. Teachers are rarely complimented for the excellent jobs they do during corporate visits. Center staff rarely speak up on conference calls because any hint of unhappiness or requests for change is frowned upon. Respect is a one way street in this company and it only flows towards the home office.

Despite all this, I enjoyed my time working there with the teachers and the families. If you are a person that is motivated from within, not from monetary compensation; gain your job satisfaction from your immediate co-workers, the children and families and if you do not need the approval of the corporate home office bosses to be happy, you can benefit from the good points of working for this company. If however, you do not function well without recognition or even respect and if you expect to be paid for all the work you do, then this is not the company for you.

During my time at Children of America, I was over worked and not compensated fairly. You are underpaid and expected to go above and beyond, including taking work home and finishing it on your own time. You are told that you have time to prep during nap time but often times people are going on breaks during that time or the children wake up. People who work hourly are constantly being sent home early, and then management wonders why we are lacking staff. The staffing is a hot mess, so many teachers have quit because of the lack of support from management and their disorganization. Management offers little to no support, all they want to do is check boxes off their list. They are pretty lazy. They want to reap the benefits of being management but want the teachers to step up and basically do what they should be doing. One stomps around the halls and pass orders but literally have no idea what goes on inside the classrooms, while the other one takes forever just to figure out scheduling for the day. There is also a big lack of communication between both management and the teachers. Management is also very forgetful and not that great at communication. Management also seems to favor certain workers and appreciate some more than others. The company wants to pitch themselves as this high scale preschool/daycare when in reality they just use that as a reason to charge more. The majority of the time the food isn’t that good, the kids rarely enjoy the meals. The curriculum is a joke, they enforce teachers to make them monthly, yet hardly give you time to create lessons plans. They expect you to be on the tablet doing assessments and other things while in the class and they also want you to be doing activities with them, so I don’t see how both can be done at once, as the tablet is time consuming. Oh let’s end this on the fact that instead of being proactive and get things done, management prefers to watch you on the cameras to make sure you’re doing your job. Parents also have access to the cameras which are live feed and often they will sometimes be nit picky about certain things. I can’t forget to add that the way this place has handled COVID outbreaks has been one of the worst ever. Almost all the teachers had to quarantine and they still kept the place open. UNSAFE WORKING CONDITIONS. This place will cause you to burnout real fast. 

Upper management does not test policies before they implement them in the field.  This often causes a lot of unnecessary problems for customers and employees.  Additionally, communication from upper management is poor and feedback is destructive rather than constructive.

As some other reviewers have noted, there are definitely cliques.  Lots of hurtful gossip and immaturity.  They do have a kitchen stocked with food and the Executive Assistant, who is amazing, does cook for the office regularly.  That said, the company provides this because most corporate employees do not have time to take their lunch breaks if they are to do a good job and meet deadlines.  

The workload would be manageable if upper management planned things better and wasn't so impulsive.  Almost daily, we would get a new task in addition to our regular duties and not once did upper management ever come over to thank us for going above and beyond what we were hired to do.  You cannot question anything or voice any concerns either without being labeled as a negative person.

Understaffed always at both the corporate and center level.  High turnover rate.  If you're good at your job, they overwork you.  Favoritism and unprofessional work environment.  No overtime pay for corporate employees.  When we closed for a full week for a hurricane, they paid us for that week and then told us we would need to make up those 40 hours during the following month or it would be taken out from our future pay.  

I cannot stress enough how poorly managed things are at the corporate level.  They do not value competency, just take advantage of it.  I worked with some very nice people at the centers and at corporate, but most of the "leaders" at the top are out of touch and don't actually care about anything but profit.

Overall, I found it to be a negative experience.  It was demoralizing to work for a business that sacrifices quality service for blind obedience to corporate mandates.  Would not recommend!

Corporate expects you to work 45+ hours a week (a lot more during licensing) and instead of any thank you they still call hourly to yell at you.  Or ask if you want to use vacation time for the half day you took after still putting in your 45 hours that week.  
Every department in corporate thinks that they are the most important and would rather have you reporting to them then tending to the children or covering for unhappy staff that call out.  (Don’t blame them, no one other than self and assistant director knew their names or thanked them.)  
Corporate out of Florida needs to understand that state regulations differ.  Massachusetts expects the best.  COA just looking for the money.  Parents do NOT want a childcare center where everyone is unhappy.  Welcome to COA.  
Can’t fill classrooms because staff Is told how to look, what to say and or lie about, tours are recorded to find out if directors are saying their sales pitch and performing up to standards.  Staff and management of a center should be allowed some creativity and given the chance to “sell” their center in a real way, not a robotic way.  They don’t hand out rate sheets instead you call and speaker phone with a sales rep that asks a few questions about how their tour was and then tries to convince them they are getting the best deal around.  Bologna!  Those are my nice words.  
They claim to have the best curriculum in the country but it’s no better than others I’ve seen. No better than a good teacher could write herself.  Creativity from the staff or directors was NOT encouraged.   
Their were days staff couldn’t take breaks on 9 hour shifts beacause there were not enough hours for myself and asst director to cover everyone and make lunch.  Too far for the district manager to travel, so she didn’t.  On your own, always.  Absolutely 0 support.  Hard for staff to bond beacause no one was happy!!  Poor treatment of all staff, all around!  Continuous staff turnover.  
Be careful!  They talk a good talk.

Upon entering my Director was so professional and cordial.
The longer I stayed I could see she was very stressed.
She wanted to bring COA back to its original state before the last Director was dismissed.  She wanted to get prior employees to leave because they did not fit the program.  I worked as a float and got along with everybody. The kids loved me.  The tension could be cut with a knife as the Teachers did a lot of justify able complaining.
The kids did a lot of crying because many parents have taken the children of the day care and a lot of the classrooms were empty.
They needed to put younger children in with older children and without the proper number of Teachers, its inappropriate.
On my last day the Director was on a bus run.  There were 2 Teacher Aides sitting at the desk.  They were devouring pizza and giggling while they heard me trying to manage the preschoolers by myself.  I believe I was in charge of 15 kids.  I was supposed to brush their teeth, change their pull ups, help them with snack and put the information on the computer.  Upon letting them do free activities at the table some of the kids were out of control throwing toys and crying.  I took them aside and put a book in front of them and tried to console them.   Some of the kids were special needs.
I don't think a Teacher should be responsible for brushing teeth.  A little fluoride mouth wash will do.  If I'm going to change pull ups, there should be 2 Co Teachers in the classroom.  The kids seemed to like me but that day its as if the building was full of evil.

There is literally nothing good about this place. No one is educated or has any experience, the turn over is so high they offer no benefits or vacation time. The pay is low, the kids are out of control due to lack of consistency. Management is incredibly incompetent, rude and dismissive to both the teachers and parents. There is no profressionalism AT ALL what so ever. The curriculum is a facade so they can charge a tuition fee and increase the rates every year. They do not follow any state regulations in regards to ratio, food, teachers experience or education or sanitation. DCS was called twice in the 6 months I worked there. You will be sick all the time because of how unsanitary it is. The kids are incredibly destructive because there is no disciplinary policy. The parents complain and yell at the teachers because of how disorganized and inconsistent the place is. I honestly do not understand how this place has not been shut down. This place is so terrible, the director I had was only in the position because she was the only person who wanted the title when upper management asked for VOLUNTEERS to take the position. She was and is highly unqualified, lazy and incompetent. The list goes on. If you're desperate and have very little value in yourself, take the job, but this entire cooperation needs to be shut down!! Worst job I've EVER had! Never again! I pray that other childcare facilities are not like this. I am PETRIFIED of taking my future children anywhere because of how horrible this place is.

Work-life balance
There is none. The scheduling is not set up to get off on time it will be way past overtime.

Pay & benefits
If a person is working this job a second that pays more would most likely have to happen. No one can live off the salary in less your living with parents in highschool or college and do not have to help pay for items around the household.

Job security and advancement
Training options are mainly online through company website. Training should as be in person not just in the classroom. Security is not good if a password is forgotten. A button can be pressed to come through not safe for children , parents or staff members.

Management
The management is unprofessional and would have staff members running the front desk like the manager. Would play around not update on update classroom materials or menus for infant classrooms.

Culture
The culture is diverse and the environment is fast paced. As of now being watched constantly on the job.including being micromanaged daily

Overall
As a whole this job is a starting positions, but does not pay enough for the cost of living. Advise to not send children there because it is not taken seriously about the care of child. Through the communication of the teachers to the managers.The information is ignored and disregard. Would advise to not send child or children to daycare that doesn’t take in consideration from the mangers. Teachers are very caring and on top of schedule and anything to do with the children.

I have been with this company as a head teacher for over two years now and I am continuously trying to find another job. The only reason I havr stayed is because they work with my school hours as I attend university. 

The director is awful! Licensing has been called multiple times by parents and employees because of overcrowding and teachers being incredibly over ratio. Although the center is only equipped for a certain number of children, the director continues to enroll new students but does not have enough teachers. Ni overtime is given. Also, the center does not have the proper materials for special education students.... However the director has enrolled special needs students as well as students with known behavioral issues. Teachers feel I'll equipped to deal with these students but the director does not offer any help whatsoever and if anything she makes the situation worse. 

Benefits are terrible as well and in almost three years of employment I have not gotten a raise. 

It's obvious that the good reviews on here were written by corporate. And speaking of corporate, the child care expert running the company is actually a former MMM fighter who does not have child care credentials and who, rather than focus on this company, has also started a film and production company. If you Google his name you will also find sexual harassment charges against him from current children of america employees.

Pros: The initial screening process was smooth and the hiring team was polite. It was easy to highlight my teaching credentials and upcoming advanced degree.
​
Cons:
While the organization has multiple vacancies across teaching and coordinator roles, the compensation structure does not align with the heavy administrative responsibilities required for the positions. The hourly rate offered around twenty-one dollars is well below market value for professionals with advanced higher education, and there is no framework in place for standard salary negotiation based on credentials.
​
Additionally, the recruitment timeline lacks flexibility regarding professional ethics; I was pressured to provide a standard two-week notice to my current employer despite explicitly stating that I am currently bound by an active teaching contract. I recently contacted corporate directly to discuss these structural issues regarding their uncompetitive wages and rigid hiring timelines, as these operational hurdles likely explain why so many of their program positions remain unfilled.
​
Advice to Management:
To attract and retain qualified educators, corporate needs to re-evaluate their wage brackets to match current market value and show more flexibility regarding standard professional contracts.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Lead teacher 738 salaries reported	$18.80 per hour
Preschool teacher 132 salaries reported	$17.55 per hour
Assistant teacher 455 salaries reported	$17.22 per hour
Bus driver 148 salaries reported	$18.67 per hour
Assistant director 107 salaries reported	$59,084 per year

Working at Children of America: Company Overview and Reviews

Children of America

Children of America Ratings

Popular jobs at Children of America

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected