Tackling Teacher Turnover in Child Care: Understanding Causes and Consequences, Identifying Solutions

Childhood Education, Summer 2006 by Hale-Jinks, Claudia, Knopf, Herman, Kemple, Kristen

Creating Additional Stress for Remaining Caregivers. Teacher turnover can throw a child care program's schedule, routines, and organization into disarray. When a teacher leaves, the remaining teachers may have to reconstruct their roles and/or take on new responsibilities. Teachers may not implement their usual practices and routines due to the stress the change has placed on them, which in turn creates greater unpredictability and stress for the children. All of these factors may cause poor quality of care until the environment is stable again, and negatively affect the security of the classroom environment for the children. Again, considering the lack of qualified teachers entering the field, finding a replacement for lost staff may be a long process, which compounds the stress felt by the organization as a whole. The stress experienced by the remaining teachers may lead to future teacher turnovers. The introduction of a new teacher to the program may be a painstaking social and emotional change for all involved. Teachers must adapt to differing philosophies, practices, and habits, and children must adjust to changes in their daily routines and expectations. Therefore, staff turnover can be detrimental to employee morale (Sciarra & Dorsey, 2003), and if such transitions are not handled with forethought and care, young children are likely to bear the brunt of the adjustment (Carter, 2001).

Costs to the Child Care Center. Teacher turnover affects a child care center financially. The costs of each turnover can range from several hundred dollars to amounts comparable to, or even above, an average employee's salary (Carter, 2001; Hamrick, 2000). Replacing a child care teacher involves the cost of advertising for a position, as well as the energy and time spent in finding and acclimating temporary or substitute teachers and in interviewing and orienting a new staff member. Depending on a center's policy, replacing a teacher also may entail the costs of fingerprinting and background checks. Parents at the child care center may become dissatisfied by the turnover rate and take their children to another center, thus creating a revenue shortfall for the center.

Remedies: What Can Be Done To Reduce Teacher Turnover?

Enhance Administrative Support. Administrative support is especially critical in retaining new teachers (Robinson, 1998). Administrators can foster a sense of belonging and shared ownership of the center community (Sciarra & Dorsey, 2003). If caregivers feel competent and needed, then they are more likely to commit themselves to the center and remain in their positions (Spindler & Biott, 2000).

Caregivers need to believe that their administration is there to guide and support them. Caregivers often perceive their interactions with their administration differently than the administrators perceive it. Administrators should continually assess their ability to provide effective, supportive, specific feedback to caregivers (Carter, 2000). Effective communication, both in and out of staff meetings, is related to high job satisfaction and low levels of emotional exhaustion (Stremmel, Benson, & Powell, 1993).