How To Hire A Preschool Teacher

When you’re writing your ad, be simple, be concise, and above all else: be specific about what you want!  After all, you can’t very well get what you forgot to ask for, can you?

You’ll want to put in your teacher ad:

1. Your name, preschool name, website, address, and email address
2. Their job title (Preschool Teacher, or Preschool Assistant)
3. Work hours (Put in your preschool hours, remember to say it runs Sept.-May, with holidays off)
4. Compensation (I pay my preschool teacher $12-17/hr. depending on education and experience)
5. Duties (What will your preschool teacher do? Teach, write curriculum, etc.)
6. How to apply (They should email you with their cover letter addressing WHY they will stay at your preschool for a long time, and their resume should address WHY they would make a great preschool teacher)

I told you earlier that you want to hire a preschool teacher you can keep, so the first thing you should look for when you hire a preschool teacher is their length of time working at a job!  If you have two applicants who are similar in education and experience, but one has worked with 5 different employers over the past 5 years, and the other one has worked with only one employer for the past 5 years, guess who you should probably hire?

That’s right… when I hire a preschool teacher, I place a LOT of weight on someone who’s stayed at a particular job for a long time because it shows me two things:  That person is loyal to the employer (and therefore will probably be loyal to me and STAY) and that person probably did a good job (and therefore will probably do a good job for me.)

Of the other two things to look at, you’ll want to look at their type of Employment and Education.  An ideal candidate would have several years’ experience teaching preschool and a Bachelor degree in Early Childhood Education.  I’ve also seen that college students in the middle of their ECE degrees are excellent preschool teachers because they have so much passion and excitement for implementing the activities/practices/teaching methods they are learning right then.

That being said, I also realize that someone with a love for children, an ability to be teachable, and a desire to educate herself in developmentally-appropriate learning methods could still make a wonderful teacher.  Just remember that you’re going to hire a preschool teacher, so why not pay someone whose education and experience can help your preschool look even better to prospective parents?

Before you hold preschool teacher interviews, you’ll want to narrow down your candidates to a list of your top 10.  At that point, contact those candidates and set up a time for them to come interview (I like to schedule interviews every 45 minutes) and I also request that they fill out a Preschool Questionnaire that they email back to me before their interview.  In the questionnaire, I like to ask the questions below, but feel free to modify the questions to fit your own needs.

1. Describe your dream job.
   This will tell you what they need out of a job… full-time employment, benefits, different position, etc.  It should help you find out if they will be fine with being a preschool teacher for several years.
2. What is one of your greatest achievements?
   This helps you see where their priorities lie.
3. Have you ever run your own in-home daycare, preschool or childcare? If Yes, please tell me about your experience.
   Very important… most likely if someone has owned their own business they’re not likely to settle for just being a preschool teacher.  Because when you hire a preschool teacher, that’s exactly what you want.
4. Please write down all your levels of education achieved and the year achieved, beginning with H.S.
   Sometimes they don’t list everything on their resume.
5. Do you have a current CPR/1st Aid Certification?
6. Do you feel more comfortable teaching 3-year-olds, 4-year-olds, or both, and why?
   If someone is great with older children but struggles with reigning in younger children, you need to know that.
7. How many years would you like to see yourself dedicating to our preschool, and why?
   Again, here is the loyalty question.
8. Have you ever taught preschool by yourself? If so, how many children were in the class and for how many months or years did you teach by yourself? If not, how many children were in the class, how many adults were teaching the class, and were you the lead or assistant teacher?
   If you’re going to hire a preschool teacher so you can transition out of being the preschool teacher role, and your teacher will be the only one with the children, you need to know that he/she feels confident in that position.
9. Please tell me about your experience with teaching from curriculum  that you have created yourself or curriculum that is already existing.  Which do you prefer teaching from?
   A lot of teachers like to create their own curriculum, but you still need to know that you can give her your guidelines and she’ll stay within those guidelines.
10. Please briefly tell me about all of your experience with children ages 3-5 and why you like that age group.
    This should help show his/her love for children.
11. Why did you (or are you) considering leaving your last place of employment? 
    Also incredibly important, as you don’t want to hire a preschool teacher who will turn around a few months later and look for another job.

I recommend spacing each interview about 45 minutes from each other, but keeping each interview under 30 minutes so you still have time to write notes and prepare for the next candidate.  If the interviews will be held in your home, remind the candidates to come at the specified time, and not earlier, as you will be interviewing other candidates.  (I had one candidate come an hour and a half early when I was trying to feed my brand new baby–NOT OK!)

I like to ask a few generic questions to each candidate like:

• As you look around this room, please tell me one or two things that could possibly injure a child while at preschool?
  This is GREAT, as you’ll quickly weed out the people who are used to babies and not preschoolers, because they’ll say things like “Well, that toy could be put in a child’s mouth,” or “You need a gate up so a child doesn’t fall down that step.”  You can’t hire a preschool teacher that keeps treating the children like babies.
• What would you do if…
  Give several different examples of a problem that could happen at preschool and ask for a response.
• Why should I hire you?
  That’s right, be bold, and see how they respond.  Are they confident or timid in their response?  Prideful or humble?

I also ask questions specific to each candidate based on questions I had with their resume, cover letter, or questionnaire.  These questions might include:

• Why did you leave your previous job?
• What did you like -and dislike- about your previous employer?
• What did you mean when you said…

After each interview, write down any comments and immediate gut feelings you have about each candidate.  Your gut feelings are important!  Because most likely, those gut feelings will also be felt by your preschool parents as they interact with your new preschool teacher.

Narrow it down to the top 3 candidates, and if you want, do a follow-up interview on the phone with them if you need any last questions answered.  Then, schedule each candidate to teach a sample 15-minute circle time teaching activity for your class.  Remember,you can always teach them what to teach… but you CAN’T teach them how to teach to a preschooler’s level, how to love children, or how to be more patient.  So look for those qualities when observing their lesson.

Yes, you can be a great employer, pay wages on time, and generally make the job as easy as possible.  BUT…  you’ve got to go a step beyond that by being an EXTRAORDINARY employer!  You’ve got to be the kind of employer that an employee wants to be loyal to, and wants to continue working with!  I’ve found that these simple ideas below will help keep your teacher loyal to you, and hopefully will help you keep your teacher as long as you both enjoy working together:

• Give Bonuses!
  I love to give bonuses to my teacher around every other month or so.  Usually a month into the new preschool year, at Christmas time, for her birthday, right before preschool ends, and a signing bonus when she commits to teach another year.  I won’t divulge how much I give out on the bonuses, but I always consider how much I think would be a great bonus, and then go with that amount.
• Give Gifts!
  That’s right, be thoughtful!  Especially give gifts on the obvious occasions, but even more important is to give gifts when they’re not expecting anything.
• Write Notes or Emails!
  Keep the communication always open.
• Praise, Praise, Praise!
  Anytime you think your teacher has done a great job, and especially when he/she has gone above and beyond the job duties, praise your teacher!
• Ask Questions!
  Find out what parts of the job are enjoyable to your teacher, and if there are parts that he/she would rather not do.  If you’re fine with taking on those duties, great.  If not, find out a way to make them more enjoyable to your teacher.