A school-age teacher works with children once they start kindergarten, running before- and after-school care, school-break programs and summer camp for kids roughly ages 5 to 12.
The job centers on group life — homework help, games, clubs and outdoor play — rather than the early-learning curriculum of the preschool room, and it runs on a split shift built around the school day.
This guide covers the work, the hours, what programs look for, and pay.
What is a school-age teacher?
A school-age teacher runs the hours that surround the school day for children who are already in school: before-school care, after-school care, school-break programs and summer camp.
The group is elementary-age, kindergarten and up — SACERS-U, the environment rating scale for school-age care, covers ages 5 to 12.
BLS marks the boundary from the other side: preschool teachers educate and care for children younger than age 5 who have not yet entered kindergarten.
Postings use several titles for this work: afterschool teacher, school age teacher, school age childcare teacher, school age program assistant, group leader, youth development professional, camp counselor.
The title varies by employer; the setting and the ages enrolled tell you what the job actually is, so read the description rather than the headline.
School-age programs operate inside licensed childcare centers, YMCAs and other community organizations, school districts, faith-based organizations and military youth programs.
BLS's industry breakdown for childcare workers overall (SOC 39-9011) shows the spread in 2025: 29% worked in child daycare services, 9% in local elementary and secondary schools, and 8% in religious, grantmaking, civic and similar organizations (a further 24% were self-employed and 17% worked in private households).
School-age rooms exist across those settings — an after-school wing of a center, a program run on a school campus, a YMCA branch, a youth center on a military installation.
What does a before- and after-school teacher do?
A before- and after-school teacher runs a program, not a class period.
The shift moves through arrival and sign-in, snack, a homework or quiet block, then activity choices — games, crafts, building and STEM clubs, sports, outdoor play — until the last child is signed out.
The throughline is group management with real choice built in.
School-age kids arrive holding a full school day, so the job is reading the room: homework support for the children who need it, high-energy options for the ones who need to move, and a calm corner for the ones who are done.
The paperwork is part of the job too.
O*NET's task list for childcare workers includes keeping records on individual children — daily observations, activities, meals served, medications given — and communicating with parents about daily activities and behaviors.
In a school-age program that becomes attendance and sign-out, allergy and medication notes, and a handoff to the adult collecting each child at the end of the day.
- Run arrival, sign-in and end-of-day handoffs
- Lead activity blocks: games, crafts, STEM, sports, clubs
- Support homework time without turning it into another class
- Serve snack and track allergies and medications
- Keep records: attendance, incident notes, notes home
- Set behavior expectations with the group, not at individual kids
It is a different rhythm from a preschool room: the day is built around the school calendar rather than nap and diapering routines, more of it is child-led choice, and the group has strong opinions about your activity plan.
That difference is exactly what draws some educators to the age group — and what makes the school-age room a useful training ground for youth work, coaching and camp leadership.
What are the hours (split shift) like?
The split shift is the defining feature of this career.
Programs run a morning block before the school day starts, go quiet during school hours, then run a second block from dismissal until early evening.
One job, two rushes, and a gap in between.
BLS describes childcare centers as usually open year round with long hours, and some centers use full-time and part-time staff on staggered shifts to cover the whole day.
BLS also notes that part-time work and irregular hours are common for childcare workers.
Before- and after-school programs take that pattern to its logical end: the work concentrates into two blocks with a hole in the middle.
What you do with the gap is the career decision.
Some staff treat it as protected time — classes, training, another job, family responsibilities.
Others add a midday shift in a preschool or toddler room so one person covers a full day across two rooms.
Then the calendar flips.
School-break weeks and summer run full-day, which changes the hours and the work at the same time: longer days, camp programming and a different rhythm from the school-year blocks.
Staff who want steady full-day hours get them in summer; staff who want school-year rhythm get that instead — know which one you are interviewing for.
What do you need to work in a school-age program?
Two systems set the bar.
Your state child care licensing agency writes the staff rules for licensed programs, and it sets those details state by state — the minimum age to work in a classroom or count in ratio, education, annual training hours, background checks and immunizations.
Those specifics are not a national rule we can confirm here, so treat everything below as the general picture and confirm your state's current requirements with your agency.
Each employer then adds its own preferences on top of the licensing floor.
BLS's baseline for the broader occupation: the typical entry-level education for childcare workers is a high school diploma or equivalent, and requirements vary — some states require a high school diploma or equivalent for entry-level positions while others have no education requirement.
To qualify for licensure, BLS says childcare staff often must pass a background check, have a complete record of immunizations, and meet a minimum training requirement; some states require CPR and first aid certification.
When a state requires a nationally recognized credential for childcare workers, BLS says it is most often the Child Development Associate (CDA), which must be renewed every 3 years.
There is also a credential built for this exact age group: the Military School-Age (MSA) credential, administered by the Council for Professional Recognition for school-age staff and family child care providers on military installations.
Candidates must complete Foundation Level training to be eligible for the MSA.
Requirements are state rules — confirm them where you live
Summer camp and school-break roles
When school is out, the same programs run all day.
Winter break, spring break, school holidays and the summer months turn school-age care into camp: themed weeks, field trips, swimming, specialists and long blocks of outdoor play.
Staff take those weeks under camp titles — camp counselor, day camp lead, summer program staff — and the job shifts from homework help to full-day group life.
Out-of-school-time work is also a career track of its own.
Community organizations — YMCAs and Boys & Girls Clubs among them — run youth programs for school-age kids year-round, and BLS groups many before/after-school and camp staff under its recreation workers occupation.
Titles to search include youth development professional and before/after-school program staff.
If you would rather build a career in youth work than early education, this is the branch.
Military child and youth programs run a formalized version of this ladder.
Child and Youth Program Assistant (CYPA) jobs are civilian positions posted on USAJOBS — a search on October 5, 2026 returned 232 of them — and postings require a high school diploma or equivalent at every level.
Air Force and Space Force postings describe the levels this way: Entry requires no prior experience; Intermediate requires six months of experience equivalent to the CY-01 entry level plus 3 AF modules and AF orientation training; Target requires 18 months of childcare or youth experience plus DoD competency training, or a CDA, an MSA or another youth credential, or an associate degree with 24 related credits.
Army and Navy programs post their own requirements, so read each posting.
How much do school-age staff make?
BLS publishes no separate wage for before- and after-school staff, so any national figure for this job is a proxy and should be labeled as one.
The school-age teacher salary page uses recreation workers (SOC 39-9032) — the BLS occupation that covers many before/after-school and camp staff — as a related-occupation proxy: a May 2025 median of $17.58 an hour, or $36,560 a year.
A second nearby series is childcare workers (SOC 39-9011), with a May 2025 median of $34,980 a year, or $16.82 an hour.
Its industry breakdown includes the settings school-age programs run in: the May 2025 median hourly wage for childcare workers was $18.15 in local elementary and secondary schools, $16.43 in child daycare services, and $16.23 in religious, grantmaking, civic and similar organizations.
Which of the two series captures a given school-age job is a survey-coding question, so both are shown here and on the salary page.
The spread is wide: in May 2025 the lowest 10% of childcare workers earned less than $11.66 an hour and the highest 10% earned more than $22.12.
That is the whole occupation in every setting, not an entry-to-seniority ladder for this job — a 10th-percentile figure is not entry-level pay.
Read both series as context, not as an offer.
Setting and state shape what a real posting pays, so compare openings directly and use the salary page for the state-by-state table.
Find school-age teacher jobs
Search more than one title.
Afterschool childcare jobs are posted as afterschool teacher, school age teacher, group leader, youth development professional and camp counselor — so run several searches and read for ages and shift pattern, not the headline.
In each posting, check the ages enrolled, whether the shift is split or full-day, and whether the hours run school-year only or year-round.
The long-run numbers, from BLS's childcare workers series (a broader occupation, not school-age specifically): employment is projected to decline 2% from 2025 to 2035, while about 150,300 openings are projected each year on average — all from replacement needs, not growth.
That replacement churn is where the openings come from: staff move between rooms, settings and roles, and programs hire to backfill.
Browse school-age teacher jobs to see what is open now — and ask in the interview how a program staffs the midday gap and who covers summer.
This page is career information, not licensing or legal advice. Staff qualification, training and background-check rules are set and updated by your state child care licensing agency — confirm current requirements with the agency where you live or hire.