preschool teacher

daycare teacher

lead teacher

child care teacher

assistant teacher

Tutor Time

I worked at my center for 2 years as a lead teacher and the particular location I was at definitely struggled with retaining staff. This is a common issue in the early childhood field but it was blatantly apparent where I was at with >50 staff members going throughout that time. Yes, you read that right. This is not to say there were not any positives working for the company. I took the job after graduating from college for ECE so I learned a lot about what it means to be an effective early childhood teacher. I met a vast array of wonderful and hardworking people and of course there were the amazing children and their families. However, the general lack of support from the overall company led me to seek other job opportunities. I agree with many other reviews I have read where the titles lead/ assistant don’t mean as much as they should because you will be expected to do it all; you’re left alone to run your classroom, clean up, fill out the paperwork expected of you, and try to keep up with the company’s seemingly constant changes in procedures and expectations of staff. Plus your life outside of work goes out the window when it comes to scheduling.

 We are simply not compensated nor are we respected enough from this for profit LARGE company, which boasts on their website how they are “second-largest for-profit child care provider in North America”. My breaking point happened because your immediate management team will MAKE OR BREAK YOU. If you’re not liked by your current management team, I sincerely wish you the very best of luck. There were changes in management where I worked and to put it briefly, I felt I was treated with a lack of professionalism and respect. Something as simple as calling for a bathroom break is not always respected. There were many instances where I felt treated more like a body in a room who’s goal is to fill up with as much kids as legally possible rather than an educator. My room has been closed down and I’ve been pulled into different classes more times than I’d like, at times with children I hardly ever interacted with previously! Kids are bumped room to room and the pressure is on the teaching staff to appease understandably upset parents.

 I’ve done my research reading up these other reviews and issues I thought were only at my center seem to occur in numerous others as well. Feeling pressure for calling off, getting out of ratio due to over enrollment, a lack of supplies, and feeling as though higher ups simply DO NOT sincerely listen to you are all issues I have faced. I’ve also had instances where I did not get paid the correct amount—definite red flag for any job! And on the topic of pay, if you want to speak up about your current rate of pay and hold discussions with coworkers the company will scare you into thinking you will lose your job even though it is your legal right to have these conversations. Overall, I do not recommend working for this company long term. It’s a great place to get your foot in the door if you want to be a teacher and you gain tons of experience. However, the low pay and overall lack of support are issues I do not see being corrected any time soon. You might luck out and work for an awesome center—don’t get me wrong, it can and does happen—but I personally wouldn’t take my chances if there are other opportunities available to you.

My experience at Tutor Time in Surprise was one of the most meaningful and impactful chapters of my career. During my almost three years with the company, I had the unique opportunity to watch the center grow exponentially. I witnessed countless changes, challenges, and successes that helped shape both the center and the people who worked there.

Like any growing center, there were periods of adjustment. During my time there, we went through two different directors before finding the leadership that truly helped the center thrive. Once we had a director who genuinely cared about the children, families, and staff while also having the knowledge and experience to lead effectively, the difference was noticeable. The culture began to shift in a positive direction, expectations became clearer, and the center started moving forward with purpose and consistency.

One of the biggest improvements I witnessed was communication. For a long time, consistency in communication was something the center struggled with. As the enrollment numbers grew and the team expanded, maintaining clear communication became increasingly important. While it took time and effort from everyone involved, management worked hard to improve those systems. By the time I left, I felt the leadership team had become much stronger and more unified, creating an environment where staff members felt more supported and informed.

What stands out most to me, however, are the relationships I built. The bonds I developed with my coworkers, the children, and the families are ones I will never forget. Working in childcare means becoming part of children’s daily lives during some of their most important developmental years, and being trusted with that responsibility is something I never took lightly. Watching children learn new skills, gain confidence, and reach milestones made every challenging day worthwhile.

This position also provided some of the greatest opportunities for personal and professional growth that I have ever experienced. I learned patience, leadership, teamwork, communication, adaptability, and problem-solving skills that I will carry with me throughout my life. The experience helped shape me not only as an educator but as a person.

The team that was in place when I left was strong, dedicated, and genuinely passionate about what they did. It felt like a group of people who truly cared about one another and about providing the best possible care for the children and families they served. Seeing that growth and transformation over the years was incredibly rewarding.

This is not a job I ever would have chosen to leave. If life circumstances had been different, I would have happily continued being part of the Tutor Time family. Sometimes life takes us in unexpected directions, but that doesn’t change how grateful I am for the experiences, memories, and relationships I gained during my time there.

To everyone who was part of my journey at Tutor Time in Surprise: thank you. The lessons learned, friendships made, and memories created will stay with me forever.

I first started working here we were a franchise company and ever since they became corporate everything went downhill.  Corporation really doesn’t care about their staff they just want their money. This place is very unprofessional.  Management is horrible they have absolutely no idea what they’re doing.  They don’t praise you for positive work they just point out all the bad.  Management never takes responsibility it’s always staff members fault. Kids are always going back-and-forth to rooms don’t really have stable environments.  Never had supplies for curriculum.   Outside play area for  over threes is OK don’t really have fun supplies for the kids to bring outside with them.  Under three outside playground they’ve had broken bikes for years. Classrooms are dirty and barely have any toys that are age-appropriate.  gossip and drama within staff & management.  These children are the most rowdiest disrespectful kids I’ve ever met.  You could call of front and asked for help and they would literally sit there, ignore you & pretend they weren’t  there.  Hours  are never consistent.  Hourly rate is horrible for the amount of work they were required to do.  Benefits arent great.   You never get out on time. This company does not believe in overtime.   There was a recent case of bedbugs & the company did not even shut down to exterminate the place.  Parents are always complaining & calling the state.  There is barely any snacks for the kids that should be provided.  Teachers are always left out of ratio.  Staff does not clean/disinfectant like they’re supposed to.  They literally hire anyone just to fill space. 
 On the positive side this company has taught me how to deal with children issues by myself.  As well as they are very flexible with school schedules.

I worked here for a little over two years, when I started I loved my job, our director was great and you were treated like you mattered. As I continued to work there management was consistently changing and you were treated worse and worse as the days went by. The management now is unbearable to work for and there is a high turnover rate in all positions. There was always a thick tension between teachers and management that parents were able to point out. I have had great coworkers who quit as they felt that they were bullied by management. You are forced to pick up more responsibilities outside of your job title and pay grade as the place is consistently short staffed. (Lead teachers having to cook for the whole school as cooks were continuously quitting or not coming to work, floaters/assistant teachers picking up the role of lead teacher WITHOUT BEING PAID AS ONE.) Many classrooms were also consistently over child to adult ratio in the morning putting stress on the teacher/s in the classroom. The only wing in the building that seemed to have it together was the Infant Wing and they were the most over ratio in the morning.

There are also very, very, VERY little opportunities for advancement at this job, especially this location. Each year you get a performance review where if you're one of the lucky ones you'll see a $0.60 pay increase. As far as shifts go, the early 7-3pm shifts used to be given on a seniority basis but are no longer given that leisure, so new staff who do not have children were given whatever hours they would like just to keep the building staffed.

The only good things about this job were seeing the children every day and building a rapport with their parents, and having a Monday - Friday job with daytime shifts, the latest ending at 6pm.

My classroom is full of two and a half to three year old children with tons of energy. Going into work everyday is a new experience and you never know what to expect. From the moment I walk in, to circle time, to projects and activities, I make the day a fun, safe learning experience the children will enjoy. They are trying to figure out the world around them and it is my job to guide them. The most rewarding part is helping them use their words to explain the way they feel and why. They are not only learning colors, numbers, letters, etc., but they are learning how to act and react in social situation with friends. To hear them explain what got them upset and talk them through what they should do when they feel that way really brings joy to my heart. I know that I make a difference in the way they think when I hear them using what we talked about on their own, without my guidance. They remembered and retained what they need to do to sort their emotions and I could not ask for anything better than that. 

I started at Tutor Time as an Assistant Teacher and shortly moved up to Lead Teacher. I have two amazing assistants that help me run the classroom with patients and an open heart. They help me keep the class running as smooth as possible. Being the lead has taught me to think on my feet. I have to be ready to change my plan at any moment because children are unpredictable. If my plan for that moment is not going to work, I have to quickly assess the children's energy and their attention and work accordingly. 

I truly enjoy working at Tutor Time and love the job I do there. I put my all into every aspect of the job and know that the children are the ones that are gaining the benefits which is my ultimate goal.

All of 2020 I spoke off and on with the direction at Tutor Time. We kept in touch until I was able to start working again. We did a virtual interview. It went really well. I had a good feeling about it, and later in an email she spoke good things about me and said how I was a highly considered candidate. They were going to do reference and background checks (even though she had kept in contact with my previous employer from 2020). Soon I messaged her to let her know I could come by for an in person meeting like we discussed on a Friday, sooner than originally expected. She told me she would speak with the admin team. Two days later I hear they are putting their hiring on hold. Strange, I thought, but okay. Today I saw a job posting at their daycare, so I reached out. She told me they had found someone with more experience for the lead position.

There are two things wrong with this statement. One, she had originally told me she was putting hiring on hold. Two, to my knowledge I was not being interviewed for a lead position. She had asked me how I felt about my capabilities being a lead teacher but I was not under the impression I was being interviewed for that particular impression. I am qualified, energetic, and have specific experience in the age/class I was being interviewed, especially with difficult behavior. The only difference about me that I can think of is that I am overweight.

I can't prove that they discriminated against me because of my weight, but considering she lied to me and said two different things, I seriously suspect that was the reason. I find that distasteful as it is, but to lie about it? Yeah. I don't care for that.

I got this job because I had just moved and needed work. The pay is better than my last job but thats not saying much. But holy h, this place is NOT what they make it seem like they are, it is all a front to look good for outsiders but everything that goes on "behind the scenes" is bare minimum and sometimes even lower. There is almost never enough food and we often have to eat the same things multiple times a day or multiple days in a row because of the strange way the food is ordered. The food is also extremely low quality. We are worked to the bone, while constantly being micromanaged and complained at for anything. No one in management is on the same page which often results in confusion and frustration. Kids and staff are CONSTANTLY shuffled around, sometimes to three separate rooms in one single day, which in my opinion disrupts the children and causes serious confusion regarding each child in the room's needs. A lot of the time kids are shuffled to different rooms just to force staff to go home early, but also for some reason closers often have to stay for 10+ hours. Supplies for classrooms are sparse and low quality, while at the same time we are constantly hounded about creating lesson plans that have to follow the strict guidelines from the company. There are a ridiculous amount of arbitrary rules that are NOT state requirements, but company imposed, which just adds more to the already stretched thin plates of the teachers. I could go on forever. I plan on quitting as soon as I secure a better job. Do not work here.

The management here is very unethical and cannot seem to communicate. Literally no one is on the same page. One supervisor might say one thing and the other one is either saying something different or was not aware. The work environment is drama filled. There is no direction here. You are literally running around being placed in different classrooms but at the same time they expect you to have a lesson planned prepared for the children. This causes stress on teachers because you don’t know what classes you will be in until you get there. Majority of the staff gossip about one another which makes the environment very sketchy. The turnover rate is super high because of how this location is running. It’s hard enjoying your personal life because you can’t get any days off because they are extremely short staffed. They expect you to plan activities with the children but the art closet is BARE. I have been repeatedly informing management that we need crayons, construction paper, etc. still NONE. I have to go out to dollar stores to spend my money on craft supplies for my students. This center really is stressful and it seems like they only thing they care about is “trying to stay in ratio” by any means. 0/10 DO NOT RECOMMEND! They hire people and can’t seem to keep them for more than 90 days because it is very chaotic here. They have meetings but nothing has been improving.

In any workplace, you will encounter people who are hard-working, competent, and easy to get along with, and others who are not. This one is no different. From management to fellow staff to children and their parents, people are people.

What made this an ultimately frustrating and dissatisfying workplace had more to do with the policies of the company at large than the individuals at the center where I worked. The corporate pressure to maximize enrollment rosters meant that classrooms were filled to over-flowing (even with three adults present, no one should ever put 36 four-year-olds in the same room!), and that neither the (frazzled to the breaking point) teachers nor the (likewise overwhelmed) administration had any real authority when dealing with disciplinary issues and behaviours that were unhealthy for the children involved and severely disruptive for the rest of the children in the room. The company's focus was on keeping the children enrolled (ie, keeping their parents' tuition payments) than on seeking to provide effective education for these young ones. So in effect, the children who for one reason or another were acting out were allowed to call the shots, while their peers' "education" suffered. (I could go into the paradoxically stringent and farsical "curriculum" imposed company-wide, but this post is long enough as it is.)

In short, though I have fond memories of individual co-workers and kids, Learning Care Group as a company left a very bad taste in my mouth.

Tutor Time has a corporate rule that all teachers must be at max ratio of children to teachers.  Both children and teachers are shuffled around to ensure that the company is paying the staff as little as possible.  What this means to a teacher is that your hours will be cut if necessary...with no notice.  A director will come in and say " take your 3 children to X classroom and you can go home for the day".  They try to cut part timers first, but they have no problem asking a full timer to leave- since no one is salaried you will leave with no pay.  

On my first day I was told by multiple teachers that the company is terrible and I made a mistake taking the position...they were right.  While I enjoyed the people I worked with, I listened to complaining all day, everyday.  

I learned that because the rules come from higher ups that never come into the daycare, no changes will be made so it was best for me to move on. The directors know the system is broke but they have to enforce the rules or their job is on the line.  

Hardest part to the job is watching kids have little structure to their days and watching the staff have a hard time being patient with children since they are constantly frustrated.  

Most enjoyable part of the day is enjoying the children.  Daycare is a fun and rewarding job when you work for a company that respects both the employees and the children.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Preschool teacher 39 salaries reported	$17.35 per hour
Daycare teacher 46 salaries reported	$17.59 per hour
Lead teacher 32 salaries reported	$18.89 per hour
Child care teacher 9 salaries reported	$16.76 per hour
Assistant teacher 14 salaries reported	$16.14 per hour

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