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A podcast for child care center owners and directors. Business tips and resources to help you build enrollment, retain your best teachers, and getting your operating just how you want it.
Welcome to the Director's Club podcast, your go to resource for childcare center owners and directors seeking success at their centers. Each week, we dive into the world of childcare management, sharing valuable tips, tools, resources, and strategies to help you build enrollment, retain top teachers, and streamline your operations. With a casual and lighthearted approach, we tackle the challenges you face from staffing and enrollment to business skills and time management. Join us as we unlock the secrets to creating a thriving childcare center. Let's laugh, learn, and grow together.
Noelle:This is the Director's Club podcast. This podcast is interactive, so make sure you head to the show notes and download the back to school guide, and then take a listen. Hey there. It's Noelle from the director's club and the teacher's lounge because I'm gonna be sharing this podcast on both because I have some pretty good things to share with your teachers. It's August, and the air is buzzing with excitement from back to school or getting ready for back to school, and the anticipation of all the things going on in our childcare centers as we kick off another amazing school year.
Noelle:And as the director, you hold the key to setting the tone and ensuring that excitement translates into a successful, organized, and impactful school year. Your leadership is not just about managing day to day operations. It's about inspiring and guiding your team towards a shared vision. The beginning of the school year is a pivotal time to align your teachers with this vision and equip them with the tools they need to thrive. In the show notes, you can download our comprehensive back to school checklist.
Noelle:It's a resource designed to help you facilitate a focused and productive staff meeting that will set the stage for a fantastic school year. And mentoring your team is to plan a staff meeting before school or at the start of school. This meeting is your opportunity to introduce the back to school checklist and share your vision. Preparation's key. The first thing you're gonna do is schedule the meeting.
Noelle:Choose a date that gives your team ample time to prepare for the school year. One of the things we like to do is every single November, when our, holiday list goes out to our families, Our staff meeting list goes out to our families to our, teachers as well. This way, everyone's prepared for the whole year of all the meetings that we're gonna have. And then next, you're gonna prepare your talking points. Outline your vision for the school year, focusing on how the checklist supports this vision.
Noelle:Think about the key goals and the values and expectations you wanna convey. What do you want the parents and the students to experience? And what do you want your team to experience? And share that all with them so they understand exactly what your vision looks like in action. Next, you're gonna get your staff meeting.
Noelle:You'll be there. And during this meeting, you're gonna present the back to school checklist. The purpose and benefits of this is explain how the checklist will help your teachers set up for success. Everyone starts the year on the right foot. We like handing out the checklist to our team so that they really can look at it and take notes.
Noelle:Now we've handed out the checklist. Let's share your vision. This is your moment to inspire. Articulate your vision to your team. Clearly communicate your goals and expectations.
Noelle:Next, you're gonna align with the checklist. Walk through the checklist with them. Discuss how the checklist aligns with this vision and supports the mission. Your vision is like a lighthouse that guides your team through the school year. It's not just about achieving academic goals or meeting standards.
Noelle:It's about creating an environment where every child feels valued, every teacher feels supported, and every family feels welcome. Your vision might include fostering a culture of inclusivity where diverse backgrounds and perspectives are celebrated. It could emphasize the importance of social emotional development, ensuring that children not only learning, but thriving emotionally and socially. Consider your vision as a tapestry woven with the threads of your core values. Perhaps you envision a center where innovation is encouraged and teachers are empowered to bring creativity into their classrooms.
Noelle:You might focus on building strong community ties, making your center a hub of activity and engagement for families and local organizations. By sharing these aspirations with your team, you provide them with a sense of purpose and direction, motivating them to contribute their best efforts towards a common goal. The next thing at the staff meeting, what you're gonna do is align efforts and set deadlines. To ensure that the checklist is effectively implemented, you're going to break down the task. So divide the checklist into manageable tasks with clear deadlines.
Noelle:You'll see on the checklist download that we have it all broken up into sections. We like to give them deadlines too so that everybody knows when things need to be done, and we don't have someone trying to get it all done the day before school starts. Assign responsibilities. Make sure each classroom lead teacher knows exactly what their role is and how they can then disperse some of the responsibilities to their co teachers and get them involved. We also like to create a shared calendar that helps them understand all these deadlines.
Noelle:The next thing that you're gonna get into is action steps in your discussion. You wanna really encourage a collaborative atmosphere. So facilitate discussions, go through the steps of the checklist, encouraging questions and ideas, and where people think they might get caught up in in struggle or trouble. Ask around the room what they like to do from the checklist that they think they're really good at, and they can share exactly how they get it done. Sometimes when we share our stories of how things are implemented in our classrooms, the whole center learns from this.
Noelle:The other thing you can do is emphasize collaboration. Highlight the importance of teamwork and supporting one another, especially during the hustle and bustle of the 1st few weeks of school. And the last thing's personal goals. Encourage teams delete back to the last goals. The last part of the action steps in discussion is setting personal goals.
Noelle:Encourage teachers to align their personal teaching goals with the center's vision and the checklist. One thing I like to do is talk about my vision, is ask them, give me examples how you see this in action in your classroom. And then that way, they can see, oh, we do have the same vision or the same, thought process on how children should be in a group environment. Alright. The next step is creating a supportive environment for your team.
Noelle:Building a positive culture is essential. The first step, strong relationships. Stress the importance of building strong relationships with families and fostering a positive classroom environment. I love doing this through examples. But as I go through how the checklist can enhance family's trust, I talk about examples of how exactly can be implemented.
Noelle:Work through that with your team. Just read the checklist and look at how you can align an action step on the checklist with what they do in the classroom already. Encourage continuous improvement and reflection throughout the year by kicking it off strong now. After you have this meeting, you're gonna go into the classrooms and ask them, how's that going? And they're gonna say it's goo going great.
Noelle:It's not going great. And that's that reflection, really thinking through what's working, what's not working, and having a collaborative discussion on how you can make it better. Lastly, one of the things I like to do on this, like we just said, was got goes back to what I was just talking about is follow-up and celebration. So you wanna maintain this momentum of the school year and the excitement of it. Right?
Noelle:And you don't want people getting back into that old habit of all same. You've been a teacher for 10 years, and it's just like same old. Because the new first few weeks always feels so exciting. Schedule periodic check ins to monitor progress and offer support. You can do this through lead teacher meetings, staff meetings where you're talking about how it's going, and really recognize the celebrations and milestones that each classroom has had when it comes to their success.
Noelle:And when you see a classroom that's highly organized, really call them out on it and celebrate that they're working through this. If you have a classroom that's struggling with back to school, find something that is working and celebrate that, and then collaborate with them on one thing that they can improve upon from that checklist and support them in doing that. We use this feedback from your teachers and families to refine your approach and improve for the next school year. Most centers that I've worked with don't have a back to school checklist. It's just assumed that everybody knows what to do.
Noelle:But the back to school checklist actually gives you a great foundation where you yourself can reflect. Okay. How did each classroom do going back to school, and what could be on this checklist that would be more beneficial for next school year? So take some time out of your day in a few weeks after implementing this and reflect on how every classroom is doing on their back to school plan, and how it rolled out, and what the effect was on the parents, and the students, and the teachers. And then look at this checklist and update it now so that next year, when the back to school season starts up, all you gotta do is print this, have your staff meeting, and go through all these steps all over again.
Noelle:I wanna thank you for listening to me. Don't forget head to the show notes, download the back to school checklist for your lead teachers, and print it for them, and talk to them about ways that they can be a little bit more organized or implement a few different things that can really make this school year a great success. I wanna thank you for listening and your commitment to creating an outstanding learning environment. Have amazing day and a fantastic school year. I can't wait to work with you through it.