BLS counts before- and after-school program staff in two occupations, and both publish hourly medians: childcare workers (SOC 39-9011) earned a national median of $16.82 an hour in May 2025, and recreation workers (SOC 39-9032), the series covering many camp and after-school roles, earned $17.58 an hour.
Around those two numbers, after-school pay tracks the program's structure — split shifts around the school day, summer weeks, and whether a district or a center runs the site.
Typical hourly pay
Two BLS occupations cover this workforce, and where a program's staff land is an employer survey classification.
Childcare workers (SOC 39-9011) is the series that also counts center teachers and assistants; recreation workers (SOC 39-9032) is the series BLS identifies with many before- and after-school and camp staff.
All four rows below are national medians from the May 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics release.
| Occupation and industry (BLS OEWS) | SOC | Median hourly | Median annual |
|---|---|---|---|
| Childcare workers, national | 39-9011 | $16.82 | $34,980 |
| Recreation workers, national | 39-9032 | $17.58 | $36,560 |
| Childcare workers in child care services (NAICS 6244) | 39-9011 | $16.43 | $34,170 |
| Childcare workers in elementary and secondary schools | 39-9011 | $17.80 | — |
The spread is published too.
For childcare workers nationally, BLS reports $11.66 an hour at the 10th percentile and $22.12 an hour at the 90th.
Percentiles describe the distribution of reported wages — the 10th percentile is not a guaranteed starting wage, and the 90th is not a cap.
The industry rows are the pattern worth watching: the same occupation shows a different median depending on whether the employer is a child care service or a school system.
Both figures come from the same May 2025 release, and the school-based row is an hourly figure — our source carries no annual median for it.
These are national medians.
State-by-state figures for the role live on our school-age teacher salary page.
Split shifts and hours
A before- and after-school schedule is two short blocks with the school day in between: a sign-in-and-breakfast block before first bell, and a homework-and-snack block that runs until the last pickup.
A program running two blocks around the school day schedules the blocks, not the gap between them — whether any time in that gap counts as paid time is something our research did not confirm, so check with the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division.
That structure shapes the paycheck twice.
It caps the hours a week the job alone can offer, because both blocks are bounded by the school bell, and it makes the annual medians in the table above a full-calendar benchmark — a schedule that only runs around the school day means fewer paid hours than an annual median implies.
Overtime and the teacher exemption
Site coordinator pay
A site coordinator is the person who runs one program location day to day: staff scheduling, family communication, attendance and enrollment paperwork.
Our research found no coordinator-specific median in the BLS data — the federal figures this page holds are the two occupations in the table above.
So the nearest published benchmark is the same table, which cannot tell you whether a coordinator earns more than line staff.
What a specific site pays is set by the operator — worth asking about directly, because the title can carry supervisory duties a line schedule does not.
The employer is the lever the data does isolate: a school-district site and a private center sit in different industries, and the industry rows above — child care services against elementary and secondary schools — are the comparison the federal data actually publishes for how that choice shows up in the numbers.
For what the school-age role looks like across a full year — the duties, the settings and where the job leads — see the school-age career guide.
Summer program pay
When school ends, the same sites flip to full-day summer programming, and BLS counts many camp staff as recreation workers (SOC 39-9032), the series with the $17.58 hourly median in the table above.
The published medians are not seasonal rates — they are single national figures for May 2025.
The calendar is what changes your total.
A counselor hired for the summer only is on payroll for the season's weeks — a fraction of the work year behind the $36,560 annual median, which is a full-year occupation figure, not a seasonal take.
Staff who stay on a site's year-round cycle, school-year split shifts plus summer weeks, put themselves on the fullest calendar the program offers.
What the summer job involves — the role rather than the rate — is its own page: summer camp counselor jobs.
Pairing with another job
The midday gap that caps a split shift is also the opening for a second role.
A morning block in a preschool or infant room, a school-district aide shift, or substitute days all share the school calendar — which is what makes the pairing work.
Two related occupations, with national May 2025 medians: preschool teachers (SOC 25-2011) earned $18.34 an hour ($38,140 a year), and teaching assistants (SOC 25-9045) earned a median of $36,780 a year.
BLS publishes teaching-assistant wages as an annual figure only, so there is no hourly comparison for that occupation — read the figure as the school-side teaching-assistant series, not a child care assistant rate.
A pairing changes the arithmetic of the week.
The after-school block is the fixed half — program schedules move with the school calendar, and the morning role has to absorb early dismissals, break weeks and conference days.
The medians above are per occupation, not combined: two part-time schedules stack hours, not figures.
Career and employer information, not licensing, legal or pay advice. Wage figures are national BLS OEWS medians for May 2025; overtime and exemption rules are administered by the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division. Confirm current rules with the DOL or your state labor department, and program staffing rules with your state child care licensing agency, before acting on them.