The True Cost of Quality Child Care in Washington A report by the Washington Child Care Collaborative Task Force | Page 52

Non-teaching staff

• Program director ( one full time )

• Assistant director ( 0.5 FTE if less than 50 children , 1.0 FTE up to 100 children , 1.5 up to 150 children , 2.0 FTE if over 150 children )

• Administrative assistant ( 0.5 FTE if less than 50 children , 1.0 FTE up to 100 children , 1.5 up to 150 children , 2.0 FTE if over 150 children )

Classroom staff The number of teachers and assistant teachers is driven by Washington ’ s ratio and group size regulations . Each classroom has a lead teacher , with additional staff counted as assistant teachers to meet ratio requirements .

In addition , the model includes an additional 0.2 FTE per classroom teaching staff to allow for coverage throughout the day for breaks and opening / closing . This reflects that the program is open more than 40 hours per week . To always maintain ratios , additional staffing capacity is needed .

Family child care homes In licensed homes , the owner / lead educator is the only staff member unless more than two infants are present , in which case an assistant is added .

Wages The model includes several salary data sources to estimate the cost of care at different salary levels . The salary selection points include :

• Current salaries from the cost of care survey

• Compensation Technical Workgroup salary scale . This salary scale was developed in 2019 by the legislatively created workgroup . The scale has a range for each position , based on educational attainment and credentials . The cost model uses the midpoint of the range .

• Kindergarten Teacher salaries . This option uses data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on kindergarten salaries across the state . Total annual salaries are used , not adjusted to account for the length of the child care year versus the school year .

• MIT Living Wage Calculator . This option uses workforce demographic data on family compensation to establish the living wage base for the teacher assistant position . Other positions in the model are adjusted to account for additional responsibilities of those staff . Living Wage data from MIT is used for each county and aggregated to create a regional living wage for use in the model . ¹

• User Input , which requires completion of wages data for each position .

Each of these salary options , except for the Compensation Technical Workgroup ( CTW ) scale , have regional variations for salaries . Table 5 presents the statewide average annual salary for a lead teacher in a child care center and an FCC provider / owner under each of these salary selection points . The annual salaries used for each of these selections for all positions and each region is detailed in Appendix A .

Table 5 : Annual salaries for lead teacher and FCC provider / owner under each salary scale included in cost model , statewide average

Lead Teacher in Child Care Center

Provider / Owner

Kindergarten Teacher

$ 76,712 $ 105,479

MIT Living Wage $ 68,819 $ 80,428

1

Family composition of teacher assistants in Washington State was not available so the study team used data recently collected in the California ECE Workforce Study as a proxy .

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