The Organizational Structure of a Daycare

A daycare can be a small, informal business operating out of the owner's home, a company with a board of directors and a formal organizational structure, or something in between. The appropriate organizational structure for a daycare depends on the size and complexity of the operation as well as the laws and regulations of the area where the daycare is located.

A small daycare operating out of a private home may not need to employ anyone other than the daycare owner, who can handle all aspects of the business from curriculum to food preparation. Once the business starts to grow and hire more people, some type of structure may be desirable. For instance, the owner can be designated as the daycare director and the most experienced employee can be designated the assistant director. Daycare staff report to either the assistant director or the director. Staff can be assigned to handle all necessary tasks or can be designated for specific areas of responsibility such as the infant room or the preschool room.

Sometimes a group of parents in need of childcare will band together and start a nonprofit company for the purpose of operating a daycare center. In this situation, the daycare center would have a volunteer board of directors responsible for hiring a supervisor to run the daily operations of the daycare center. The supervisors would oversee all the other employees such as teachers or assistant teachers, cooks, custodians, part-time assistants or bookkeepers. In this type of company, the parents serving on the board of directors are the employers and the supervisor is an employee.

When a daycare operation grows to the point where a chart is needed to describe the structure, the most important question to answer is who reports to who. If you employ a cook to make all the meals for your daycare, it doesn't make much sense for the cook to report to one of your other employees because their regular responsibilities have nothing to do with making the food. Similarly, a bookkeeper or administrative assistant deals with issues separate from the childcare your center offers, so it wouldn't make sense to have your bookkeeper report to a member of your childcare staff.

In designing your organizational chart, draw up a list of every title in your daycare center. For instance, you might have a director, an assistant director, a cook, a administrative assistant, an infant room supervisor, a toddler room supervisor and a preschool room supervisor, plus full-time and part-time childcare staff. Put each title in a box and draw a line to connect that box with whoever that person reports to. Any non-childcare staff should report to the director or assistant director. The supervisors for each section of the daycare center should also report to the director or assistant director. Regular full-time and part-time staff should report to their own supervisors.