Difficulties from a shortage of early childhood educators are being exacerbated by Department of Health red tape, some nursery school workers have told The Royal Gazette.

In Bermuda, preschools are primarily supervised by the Child Care Regulation Programme within the department.

One preschool owner was facing closure as she struggled to meet government staffing requirements.

“I have had a really hard time finding qualified staff,” she said.

Her specific challenge has been finding a deputy, someone who can take over when the manager is away.

She is required to submit a potential hire to the health department, who decide what tier they fall under – deputy, teacher, or person in charge.

“A lot of people only qualify as a teacher,” she said. “To stay in operation we need a deputy.”

She claimed to have seen the health department reject veteran schoolteachers with master’s degrees, because they did not have specific experience with preschoolers, in favour of early childhood education certificates, but no experience.

As a result, she was forced to drastically reduce the size of her nursery so she could go on operating.

“If I don’t get this sorted soon I will have to close in September,” she said.

She got into the business during the pandemic, and has since seen several friends in the industry close their doors.

“I know of a nursery last December that closed permanently after three teachers left,” she said. “It happened very quickly and the parents of the children there were left inconvenienced.”

A head teacher at a larger preschool told The Royal Gazette her struggle was more in finding substitute teachers qualified in the eyes of the health department.

She said substitute preschool teachers were required to have the same level of certification as a regular teacher.

“If you have that certification then you are probably already working,” she said. “The health department keeps a list of potential substitute teachers. Last year there were two people on the list. This year there is one.”

A teacher at another school called the health department’s substitute teacher list a “complete failure”.

Assistant teachers cannot step into the absent teacher’s role, even for a day, without risking the nursery’s licence.

If a qualified substitute is found they cannot quickly step in to help, because paper work must be submitted first.

“In emergency situations, there has to be some give and take,” she said.

A report from the Early Care & Education Consortium in the United States, found that in February 2022, two-thirds of child care providers had a staffing shortage that impacted their ability to serve families. More than half of them were forced to cut down on the number of children they cared for.

“Not a lot of people are choosing to study this field,” one preschool head teacher told The Royal Gazette.

She said new hires were usually not people new to the industry, but people from other nurseries.

“We are just cycling staff,” she said.

The head teacher said it was rare to find a new person who had studied early childhood education.

“On top of that, people are leaving the field to go to different careers,” she said. “It is a high-energy job. It is easy to get burnout.”

After 20 years in the business, she was getting ready to make a change herself.

Another teacher said the department’s regulations were stressful, but had improved the industry overall.

“It has made it safer, but has also made it more expensive to do business,” said the educator, who runs a large preschool. “There is a lot of competition out there.”

To cope, she has two extra staff members who can step in where needed.

She is at full capacity, but was getting calls from parents whose child care provider had suddenly shut down.

One teacher said teachers banded together in the past to meet with the Bermuda Industrial Union to express their concerns. Not much came of the meeting, and the group fell apart. She is hoping to see a group for early childhood education teachers revived again in Bermuda.