Children and Teacher Ratios

[zosim]

Hi guys,

I have a facility with about 60 kids. We've lost a couple of kids due to the economy and so I'm now looking at ways to keep us going through these financial hardship times.

I looked at my child-to-teacher ratio and in some classrooms, where I used to need 2 teachers, now I only need 1. My question to those who've done this before. If I had 1 teacher in a classroom and I am within ratio, how do you handle it if a child needs to go to the bathroom? The teacher will have to escort the child to the bathroom, so no one would be left to attend the other children. I assume the state allows this or they would have changed ratio requirements to have minimum of 2 teachers for a class that's more than 1 kid.

Thanks

While it's doable you may have a very high stress situation for the teacher. I hated being in a class by myself with 10 children. It's extremely hard to feed children while putting their cots out for nap while escorting them to the bathroom and making sure they are getting their hands washed while cleaning up various accidents. My best advice would be to have one or two floaters that can come to someone's aide at certain times of the day. Going to the bathroom is also stressful when you have to wait for someone to come in and relieve you. It's really rough and I would never be in a room by myself again unless there was a VERY consistent floater.