Wanted: Teachers who speak fluent toddler.
Our 2-year-olds are sad because one of their teachers is leaving. They are looking for a new teacher to join them as soon as possible. They want someone who will take the time to get to know them and laugh and play with them, someone who will make them feel welcomed, nurtured, and special during their time in your classroom. They know it will be hard at times, but they want someone who will acknowledge them and won't get angry with them while they are learning alternate behaviors and how to use their words to express their emotions.
Stepping Stones is owned by two former preschool teachers who worked together for many years before starting their own center. They know what it's like to be a preschool teacher and have to work at the highest possible ratios, such as being by yourself in a room of 12 two-year olds.
Part of our mission statement is to be a center where teachers want to teach. As such, we use lower ratios and we don't shuffle children around during the day to make sure classrooms are full.
We advance children from group to group throughout the year when they reach the appropriate age instead of filling classrooms with children of broad age discrepancies in the fall and making them stay through the spring even if they are ready to move on.
We have a purpose-built center tucked between Covington Elementary School and Rosita Park. This is a center, not a home care, or a converted house. We have large bright classrooms with a huge beautiful playground.
Here’s a typical day working at Stepping Stones Preschool:
You will start your day in our Breakroom Lounge just before 8:30, your start time. There's a Keurig with a wide range of coffee and tea, a microwave, and an oven to warm up your breakfast. We also have soda and filtered water. After you stash your purse and other belongings in your locker and plug your phone into the provided charging port, you head to the classroom.
Our Twos group (we sometimes call it the Preschool group) shares a classroom with our Threes group. We use a 1:8 ratio in this classroom. It's a huge classroom with an inside play structure for hot, cold, or wet days (or any day). Our child size bathroom is open to the classroom to make supervising potty time easy to do.
After a combined twos and threes Circle time, you (and/or your co-teacher) will serve snack and lead the children in a short activity such as art, science, or music and movement. Part of your responsibility will be to plan these activities with your co-teacher. Most weeks, you'll have 30 minutes of prep time and time at nap-time to plan your activities and complete the daily reports to parents.
Then after 45 minutes of free time in the classroom, the twos will go outside while the threes group has a second more advanced 15-minute Circle time before going outside.
After about an hour outside the children will come in for Lunch before nap-time.
During Nap-time, half the teachers go to lunch the first hour, and the other half go to lunch the second hour of nap. The afternoon is much like the morning with an activity, snack, and free-time inside before going outside. You'll bring the children back inside at 5:00 before leaving at 5:30.
Our Preschool children need someone who will make them feel welcomed, safe, and special during their time at the center. They want someone who will not talk across the classroom, but go to them and get down to their level to speak to them. Most of them have come from our infant center where the rules were a little more relaxed so they'll need help learning where the boundaries are. They want to have fun, but also need to learn how to sit for more than a few minutes. You'll also be helping toilet train them before they move on to our Threes group.
Sound good? We would like to talk to you.
For more information about us, please visit our website: www.ssp-la.com
You can see information about our Twos program here: www.ssp-la.com/prog_2.php
For details about this and other positions, please see our positions page:
www.ssp-la.com/positions.php
In order to qualify for this position, you must have at least 12 Early Childhood Education units, although we have pay scales that go all the way up to a Bachelors in Early Childhood education.
Job Type: Full-time
Pay: $24.75 - $38.00 per hour
Expected hours: 40 per week
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- 401(k) matching
- Dental insurance
- Health insurance
- Paid time off
- Retirement plan
- Vision insurance
Schedule:
- 8 hour shift
- Day shift
- Monday to Friday
- No nights
- No weekends
Application Question(s):
- Are you able to work 8:30-5:30, Mon-Fri, year-round?
License/Certification:
- 12 ECE units or an Assoc., Teacher, or Master Teacher Permit (Required)
Work Location: In person