Any Pre School Teachers Out There?

[mjaclyn]

My DD (will be 4 in October) just started pre school today. When I first registered her for the class back in June there were only supposed to be 16 to 18 children in the class with 1 Teacher and 1 Assistant Teacher. However, when I brought her today they had added a lot of children to the class and now there are 23 kids with only 2 Teachers. Does anyone know if this is legal? I live in New York State and I can't seem to find anything online that says what the legal ratio of student/teacher is for pre school. One of the parents expressed their concern today and the teachers said that there are five adults in the building even though only two are teaching pre school. The other adults are in charge of the 'Busy Bee' program which is basically day care for younger children. I don't see how they can count any of those adults for the pre school children since they're not even in the room with them. I'm very concerned because 23 three and four year olds is a LOT for two adults to look after. I don't know if I still feel comfortable leaving my DD there. I'd love to hear thoughts from anyone who teaches pre school or who has experience in this type of situation.

Thanks!!

 

[disneybound2010]

I'm not a teacher, but my DS just started Pre-K as well. I was under the impression that it was only 15 max with 2 teachers in the room, but there are at least 20 in his class. Our Pre-K is in the actual elementary school and they do the morning and afternoon classes. I was a bit concerned at first, but they seem to have a pretty good system down in regards to safety and in the 3 weeks that the children have been there, the teacher and aide seem to have the kids following rules as if they had been in school for years. I am actually amazed at how well they all seem to follow directions for them. My best suggestion would be to address all of your concerns and ask any questions you feel the need to. A good teacher or school will be happy to talk with you and do their best to alleviate your concerns.

 

[klj27]

You should be able to check their license. Hopefully it is posted somewhere in the school. Our school was licensed to have 16 3 year olds with a teacher and an aide. We got a new director who did a lot of things I didn't agree with and one was adding additional kids above the licensing range. Honestly if they are not following a huge rule like that they probably aren't following a lot of rules.

If your school is licensed for the amount of kids that are in the class it is just a matter of misrepresentation.

 

[marcyinPA]

I teach preschool in PA...our preschool is licensed as a child care center as we provide extended care. The ratio for children ages 3 to 5 is 10:1. I think the limit for a single class is 20.

 

[mjaclyn]

If the school is only licensed for 16 children to 2 adults and they are obviously way over that, what does that mean for them? Could they be reported somehow? Or is the 16:2 ratio just a guideline and nothing can be done about it?

 

[karibritt01]

There should be a state agency that oversees the daycares. (In NC it is Dept of Children and Family Services.) They should be able to tell you what the legal limit is, as well as what your center is licensed for.

As for your "gut feeling" that something isn't right... go with your gut! If you don't feel comfortable leaving your child in that situation, then don't. I would start looking for a new preschool ASAP.

 

[Hannathy]

remember the ratios are different for schools vs day care. You can have more kids in a school setting than a day care.

You should be able to go on line to the state licensing site and hunt up the regulations. a little bit of googling should get you your answer.

 

[disfan07]

Our liscensing for daycare was 1:10 for 3 yr olds and 1:12 for 4 year olds. Each age was separated but we were liscensed as a daycare. Is it a daycare program with a preschool component (that's what ours was) or is it just a preschool program? I believe that makes a difference in liscensing numbers.

We did have 20 3 year olds with 2 adults a couple of times during flu season when we were short staffed in the afternoon but our ratios were normally 2:13 or 3:16 for 3s and 2:15 for 4s

 

[RunningGirl]

The largest class at our preschool is 14 kids (4-year-olds) to 2 teachers.

 

[Pembo]

Ohio law is, I believe, 18 4 yo to 2 teachers. 23 sounds WAY too high.

 

[bethbuchall]

I can't find it now either. I know that the preschool that I teach at (in NYS) caps the 4's class at 14 with two teachers. I thought that the allowed ratio was 1:8 with a maximum group size at 22 (with three teachers), but I can't find the regulations to back that up right now.

I would be concerned with that many 4-year old children in the classroom with only two adults. It shouldn't matter how many other adults are in the building.

 

[Familyof4lovesDW]

It would be legal here 3 year old ratio is 1:12 and the 4 year old ratio is 1:14. As long as you have the teachers to match the ratio you can do it legally. Because it is 3 & 4 year olds you could have 2 teachers with 24 kids. You have to go by the youngest child ratio unless there is only one 3 year old, you could have 28 with 2 teachers.

Here they are required to have ratios posted in each room and in the office. It will also say on their license what the maximum amount of kids they can have for each age group.

In Ohio you can go to the job and family service website and see ratios, the license and the licensing report to see if they have been out of compliance on ratios and everything else. I would look to see if your state has something like this. You should be able to google it. I was an assistant director and since we did not have a director most of the time, I had to make sure everyone was in ratio. If they are out of ratio call the state, they will not tell them who called and are required to make a next day suprise visit, to check out the complaint (in Ohio). HTH

 

[abdmom]

I found a site, while not the official site, that lists the accepted ratios for different ages in New York state: Day care New York

It looks like they are over their ratio.

I've had about 14 years of experience as a Mom using daycares. I agree with the poster who said to go with your gut. There are excellent daycares out there and there are crummy ones. I wouldn't be comfortable with the ratio you gave either.

DS is now 5. Last year he was in a private preschool which maxed out at 6 kids with one teacher. This year he is in private senior kindergarten which has 12 kids with one teacher and one aide. Even if he were in public senior kindergarten, the ratio would be one teacher and one aide to 18 students.

I teach high school students. Yesterday, I finally had my largest class - 22 students ( I've also taught much larger classes). My smallest class has 9 students, and another has 17 students. There is a BIG difference in the students' experience depending on the number of students in the class. I find that over 16 students, the students do not get to participate in the class as much as I would want. I can't keep an eye on their progress on a day to day basis either.

I agree, look for another preschool.

 

[bethbuchall]

Preschools in NYS do not need to be licensed if they are in operation less than 3 hours/day. I'm not sure what that means regarding ratios. You did mention that there is also a daycare room, so that center probably does need to be licensed. NYS Office of Children and Family Services is probably the place to contact unless you are in NYC.

 

[mjaclyn]

The preschool program is three days a week for 2 1/2 hours each day. I know that they originally only planned on having 16 children in the class with 2 adults but some of their former students didn't sign up early and would have been shut out, which they didn't want to do. I'm definitely going to talk to them about this and suggest that they add an afternoon preschool class as well. Right now they have the preschool class on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays from 9-11:30am. They could easily add another class on those same days from 1:30 to 4:00 or something similar. Where I am you have to register your child months in advance in order to even get into a preschool so I'd like to try to work something out here before I take her out. If I do remove her I might not find anything else and I really don't want her to go from nothing at all to five full days a week in Kindergarten next year.

Other than the teacher/student ratio issue I absolutely LOVE this place. The teachers are SO nice and they encourage a lot of open communication. I'm sure they only wanted to give their former students a chance to be in the class too and thought that since there were always going to be five adults available that there wouldn't be a problem. The daycare room is across the hall from the preschool room but there still wouldn't be three full time people in there at all times. That's my concern. I'm definitely going to talk to them about it.

 

[ADisneyQueen]

I was a daycare teacher in NY and our ratio for 4 yr. olds was 1:8. we had classrooms of 16 w/ 2 teachers.

 

[aprilvaca04]

I work at a daycare that has a preschool and for us we can have 10:1 ratio and then we max out at 12:2 We have 2-4 yr olds. I couldn't imagine having more than that and it working for the kids. I would ask questions and if you are not comfortable with the answers look elsewhere. Best wishes

 

[crazyme5kids]

I work in a childcare center. The ratio breaks down like this: Preschool age 4 is 1 caregiver to 8 children. Age 3 is 1:7. For 18 months to age 2 the ratio is 1:5. Infants are 1:4. If the preschool class has both 3 and 4 year old children in it, you use the lower ratio of 1 caregiver to 7 children.

In addition, a center also must have X amount of square footage per child in the classroom (I don't remember off hand what it is). So this has a bearing on how many children a center is legally allowed to accept per day.

It sounds to me though that your child might be in a nursery school setting, which is different than a childcare center setting. I'm thinking back to years ago which at this point may be outdated information, but I believe they have different rules regarding the ratio of children to caregivers for nursery schools. Church based settings also follow a different set of rules or used to.

I hope this helps.

 

[Hannathy]

Yes they are. People keep quoting Day care ratio's and they are completely different from pre-school numbers.

When I was teaching for the Y the number I needed before I even had an aid was pretty high. I'm thinking it was 10. I know we had 18 all the time if not more with 1 aid.

 

[crazyme5kids]

Yes they are. People keep quoting Day care ratio's and they are completely different from pre-school numbers.

When I was teaching for the Y the number I needed before I even had an aid was pretty high. I'm thinking it was 10. I know we had 18 all the time if not more with 1 aid.

Also, if it is a preschool within a public school system they probably have a different set of standards and regulations than child care centers and nursery schools.