The staff at Harwood Hills Country School, which currently serves 130 families, will close when its lease expires on June 30. The landlord is planning to sell and develop the building as residential property. Director Lauren Kuhn points to cost-efficiency, extremely long days, and the need to satisfy the employees as reasons to make the change. Staff are really, really hard to come by. The shortage of staff members is another problem that preschools face.
Teachers often earn more money by turning to public schools, or by switching professions.
According to Perez, in the past, many preschool teachers were women, who didn't need to make much money because their husbands made enough to support the family. Daniels thinks that, to keep staff members, preschools must raise tuition and increase teachers' salaries. Charmer recently cut back the number of students it accepts, from 74 children last year to 45 this year. Daniels says that the cutback was done in order to keep the teacher-student ratio low and to increase the quality of instruction. There has also been a shift in the demographics of the valley.