early childhood teacher

preschool teacher

lead teacher

center director

teacher

Learning Care Group

Where do I even begin? Initially, I loved my job. My first director, my coworkers, the kids & their families. Everything was great. When management changed, in came the issues. Most of the members of management that I have worked with were NOT properly trained, just thrown into the position and forced to figure it out. It’s not fair to the staff or families to have a leader that doesn’t know what they’re doing. I experienced this about 4 times between 2 different centers. In 4 years, I’ve worked under 8 different directors/assistant directors. Of the 8, I had grotesque experiences with 5. I understand that being a director can be a challenging or demanding job, & that sometimes they’re going to have to make decisions that the staff do not agree with in order to keep their own jobs, but what I’ve dealt with is absolutely unacceptable. In the 4 years that I spent with this company, I’ve experienced favoritism, the selection of money over quality, lies about getting supplies and help, lack of support both professionally and personally from management, deception of trust between management and families, and so much more. I’ve seen several employees rise up in their positions simply because they were friends or had a close relationship with management. I’ve seen employees be allowed to nothing (walk the hallways, talk to other teachers, take unlimited and extended bathroom breaks, show up and leave whenever they feel like it) for the same reason. I’ve even witnessed employees actively fighting or trying to fight another employee, teachers leaving children unattended for whatever reason, teachers saying negative things about other teachers to families, teachers eating the food of the children that cannot eat the center food, teachers refusing to feed multiple children at once because they don’t feel like it, & so much more & they still keep their jobs. For 2+ years I BEGGED my directors and district managers for help, a coteacher and materials for my classroom. Do you think I ever saw it? Absolutely not. Yet and still, I was ALWAYS blamed for the condition of my classroom. If I’m telling you I need help then get me the help that I need. So many situations could have been avoided if management would have just either helped or gotten help instead of refusing to do so and then blaming the problem on the teacher later on. I could honestly write a book about the terrible experiences that I’ve endured while working for this company. I will admit that it was not all bad, but after 4 years I find myself reconsidering whether or not teaching was something that I really wanted to do. I had to leave to protect my dream & my sanity.

I have stayed for two years because I have become friends with my co-workers and because I can be around infants and children and strive to be a positive influence in their lives.  My director and co-director are also my friends, although I definitely take issue with some of their practices.  They both have behaved, on numerous occasions, in ways I would consider decidedly unprofessional and unsupportive of the staff they rely on.  Additional demands are continually being put on us without any additional pay or support.  In the least, I would hope that the higher-ups who put all the extra demands on us would acknowledge that their decisions make our jobs ever more difficult and stressful.  Even if we aren't paid enough, a genuine acknowledgement of our dedication and devotion to the children would certainly go a long way.  As it is, we feel undervalued at best and insulted at worst.  I'm sure upper administration has their own stresses and unfair burdens to bear.  But if that is the case, they should have the professional empathy to treat us with the respect we deserve.  Having 12 infants in one room, with one changing table and a little frig that cant hold all the bottles and baby food is frustrating.  Constantly running out of paper towels is frustrating.  Working in a room that smells like dirty diapers because the trash fills to over-flowing by the end of the day is disgusting.. BEING MONITORED ON CCTV IS INSULTING!!!  DEMEANING!!!  I resent that very much.  

I know LCG does some things right, or people wouldn't trust their infants and children into their care.  I know that many high level administrators must actually care about employees and not just money.  But whenever we get a visit from administrators, any input they give is negative and shows that they don't really understand what it takes to do our jobs.  We are left feeling unfairly criticized and misunderstood.

Absolutely love all the children and families. Management picks favorites, makes it obvious when they try to single somebody out. They say pay is based on experience and education, but I have been working with LCG for 4 years, and am currently enrolled to get my ECE degree, and there are people being hired starting out at way more than I currently make. They let some teachers pick and choose which kids come into their classroom an send the behavioral kids to another classroom. They constantly ask people to stay late, but then at the end of the pay period they send you home early so you don't get to keep the overtime. They wait until it is 10 minutes until your time to leave and then expect you to be able to correctly shut down your classroom and clock out on time. Constantly shift kids around so their items get lost and then blame the teachers. Do not keep us updated on important stuff we should know. Do not supply us with basic art supplies such as construction paper, glue sticks, scissors, markers/crayons, etc. Constantly is adding new curriculum requirements and tasks that need to be done daily on top of the 50 thousand things we already have to do. Expects us to follow the daily schedule but meals are always very late, children do not get full 2 hours of nap time, and never have enough clean sheets for the cots. We are supposed to do Family Style Dining during meal times, but never have enough bowls of food and scoopers for each table. Always run out of paper towels, tissues, soap, paper plates and cups, etc. Puts teachers who do not have all of the minimum requirements in a higher paying position, such as NC Pre-k. Love the overall idea of the Learning Care Group and what they try to strive for, but I believe they should value their current long term employees a little more before they all leave. They expect too much from the teachers that barely get paid anything.

Good Day everyone,
I just wanted to take a minute to tell you about our company and what happens here. A typical day of work for me is to come in to a mostly joyful (you never quite know what you will get) building with happy staff and sincere engagement between families and staff. I go into my office to work on billing for several agencies. Every day has a new task or issue to deal with so things never really get boring. :) I call and/or e-mail my boss at least every other day, because she works in another office and we talk and laugh with each other. I really appreciate my supervisor because not only does she help me work thought questions and difficulties with centers, but when they have a problem with me she is there to back me up 1st and foremost. Then if it is my fault she will help me learn and strategize how to not do it again. All in all, I work in a great environment with helpful and happy coworkers.

Unfortunately every job has it's down sides and below are my complains:
 - A lot of parents don't understand how much we (as a company of center) do, and that we are not babysitters we are trying to educate their children.
 - It is hard to be support staff sometimes, because we are so often so busy supporting that we don't get much support. 
 - A lot of my job is hinged on others doing their job, and when I miss my deadlines, because they missed theirs. It can be not just hard to explain but frustrating.

Honestly, I have worked for mom and pop's and several companies and their is a reason I stay here. I feel like here the company honestly tries to take care of us (families and employees'). We work with several other companies to not just give parents who join us discounts, but also employees. The health benefits and payment programs are wonderful, and the ICare foundation helps employees in disasters. New and helpful things can move very slowly in a company but here if it is about the children important changes happen fast.

I worked as a childcare director for nearly 10 years, winning awards for a "highly utilized" school in the region. Highly utilized means the school was over capacity. This affected day-to-day operations as kids are consistently shuffled from room to room multiple times a day and transition to entirely new classrooms every 6 months.

Once COVID happened, our goals needed to change. We no longer had the staff needed for all the kids they wanted us to bring in everyday. As a result, we were frequently operating outside of state-required ratios. Kids were kept in hallways and in buggies to prevent teachers from being over ratio in classrooms. Many of their centers are now on provisional licenses due to this. 

Teachers are paid $13-15 at the best schools (those operating at high or above capacity). Otherwise it's $10-13. They are expected to work "based on the needs of the center" so when kids are there 6:30-6:30, the teachers are too. However, LCG does not approve overtime so this coverage falls on the salaried management team (1 or 2 people per school). 

Benefits are subpar and are a huge chunk of your paycheck. The flexible PTO for directors was nice, but it had to be approved "based on the needs of the center" by the District Manager.

LCG uses their own curriculum, daily communication tools/camera as well as their training procedures. This enables them to pay themselves for these services, but also means best practices in education are often ignored.  Professional development is not done in any meaningful way with peers outside of the company. Everything is done in-house so learning useful information from others in the field rarely happens. Also this prevents the people who work there from knowing how much better it is outside of LCG.

I’ve been working in childcare (and specifically LCG) for nearly 3 years now. I’ve had experience in nearly all age groups and as an assistant, a teacher, and briefly a lead teacher before becoming the Team Lead. The fact that Directors apparently face consequences (or get a nice little bonus for doing what is mentioned below, even though they’re not in the classroom dealing with being exactly at or over ratio with all these kids) if they don’t continually meet a quota to keep enrolling kids versus focusing on actually hiring teachers first is appalling. The fact that if I stay late I’m told to clock out (and thus provide free labor because corporate is hounding us about labor hours, is appalling. The ratios are appalling, at least here in TX (where ratios are TWICE the NATIONAL average). But yeah, keep enrolling kids and wonder why daycare workers are quitting. The turnover at my center with better pay/opportunities/insurance/etc is horrendous compared to the crummy retail and food service jobs I worked in previous years COMBINED. I do enjoy the camaraderie and the atmosphere for the most part, and I adore working with kids and watching them learn and grow but the obvious neglect for mental and emotional well-being of teachers from corporate as well as fellow management just really makes me want to tell people to not work for LCG if they were to ever come looking for job recommendations. I started as Team Lead excited for more responsibilities. My contract says I’ll spend “up to 50% of my day in a classroom” but I spend 100% of my day in a classroom. It’s been nearly 2 months. Because we’re not focused on hiring teachers but keep enrolling kid after kid after kid. I can’t do MY job, which is to mentor and support my teachers. Boils my blood. 

Worked for tutor time for about a year and a half. Horrible management horrible district management and just a horrible company as a whole. All they care about is enrolling families, even if they don't have the staff for it. So teachers are left over ratio on a daily basis. Makes me sick and reminds me of a puppy mill. They don't care about the well being of the children and don't care if your in the hospital, if they need you to come in from over enrolling, they expect you to be there and will pretty much force you to go in, even with a fever and a Dr. Note. Management will approve time off way in advance and than before your vacation they will try to make u come in, although it was approved. They will talk bad about you to other staff members and treat you like a slave. They expect you to stay as long as they need you even two hours pass your 8 and wont even ask you if its okay. And once you run into overtime they will make you take a two hour lunch everyday if they have to just so you don't get those extra hours.  Their RUDE, INCONCIDERATE, IGNORANT AND SELFISH. I even tried talking to the district manager and she completly blew me off and did nothing. Theres no help and no one to turn to if you have an issue. I stayed so long because I loved the children and felt like I was making a difference I even got promoted to try and make a difference myself but it got SO MUCH WORSE...I had enough and had to quit. I will NEVER work for any LCG company EVER again and I will make sure to let people know NOT to enroll their children there as I would NEVER leave my child at any of their centers.

I would not work for this company again and frankly, my experience has turned me off to working in any day care or preschool setting. The locations I interacted with were constantly understaffed, which led to teachers working well past their scheduled shift on a regular basis. Working a bit past wouldn't have been so bad if they actually paid their employees for that time worked. But because it's evil to have overtime with Learning Care Group, especially Tutor Time, their response was to regularly send people on 2+ hour long breaks. We did not have any say in whether we were fine taking a long break to purge any extra hours, we were just expected to do it. Management treats their teachers as expendable. An issue arose that easily could have been a teachable moment on how to properly resolve it, especially since it was my first time in a professional child care setting, but instead they used the flimsy excuse of having talked toe about an unrelated matter as a means to terminate me. So forgive me for trying to keep children safe when they're shoving cabinets away from walls and climbing behind them. Don't work for this company, you are just a space filler to them and for all the time and effort they want you to put in they can't even be bothered to pay above minimum wage. They have teachers that constantly ignore licensing requirements regarding when food can be served and if you bring it to their attention they'll just take the side of the teacher doing it wrong and get rid of you. This company isn't worth wasting a thought on. If you really want to work on day car, stay far away from Learning Care Group, especially Tutor Time.

It is a very poor work environment to try to work in. I followed the rules obeyed all directions given to me by the lead teacher and I still got screwed over. The directors are a joke because they have their "favorites" and they can get away with anything even if it endangers a small infant or child. I was framed a lot for things that I did not do by a lying coworker who has no class. She had to lie about me to get ahead in her job, but not due to her own talent or hard work.  It is a toxic work environment due to the unprofessionalism that is basically in every day care by the Learning Care Group.  I really cared for the children and infants and I loved being around them, but the gossip and the favoritism ruined the work experience for me. Before you consider working for this company, please read these reviews because it is very true.  I was appalled by being called a name by a coworker who has no business calling anyone names in an infant room. What are you teaching these kids? By calling names to another employee, that is a real positive role model for a teacher to display isn't it?  I caught a coworker shopping for Black Friday items on the company IPAD during work hours. I couldn't even enter my work that I was doing due to her shopping on the IPAD.  Constant telephone use during company hours in the classroom. Parents please put your children elsewhere!! I am speaking the truth, as well as others.

I worked for Childtime and a center that was converting to a Children's Courtyard.  I worked with a great co-teacher.  At Childtime I ran into an issue and tried to talk with the director, she basically said I was the only one who felt that way (I was the only one who would say anything). I felt I was not listened to, not communicated with and felt like I was being punished.  I gave 2 weeks notice and they released me within 2 days.  The GM got me transferred to the Children's courtyard.  I was mocked (made fun of because I had pneumonia and lost my voice - management talked like I did in front of parents) , degraded, felt left out, no communication, no supplies, etc.  I would call to get reports signed and no one ever came.  I've had my gallbladder removed so I can't wait as long to use the bathroom.  I called for a bathroom break after I waited 20 minutes, she said give me a couple minutes.  Over 35 minutes later she came (she was drying dishes in the kitchen with another person).  A co-worker came in to give me a lunch break and let me go 5 minutes before she showed up.  By then I was sick/nauseous and miserable.
   
I tried to get my f/t benefits (I was p/t for like 3 months, then f/t for 10) by this time I would have had to work 2 more months to get health insurance and 6 more months to get ANY PTO time.  So I was basically penalized because I was p/t.  To  work a year and a half under these conditions to get benefits?!?! No wonder they can't keep good help.

They never came to check on us.  I felt like there was no time for me to talk to them.  It could have all been handled better.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Early childhood teacher 3 salaries reported	$17.50 per hour
Preschool teacher 17 salaries reported	$17.03 per hour
Lead teacher 15 salaries reported	$17.15 per hour
Center director 22 salaries reported	$64,904 per year
Teacher 5 salaries reported	$15.90 per hour

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