Childcare substitute job description template (duties, qualifications, schedule)

A substitute posting does a harder job than a permanent-role posting: it has to convince someone to walk into a room of children they have never met, on a schedule that shifts, and follow another teacher's plans.

The three sections below carry that weight — the duties, the qualifications, the physical demands and the availability — and the template further down assembles them into a posting you can publish.

Key duties and responsibilities

Write the duties the way a coverage day actually runs.

A substitute arrives early enough to read the plans the regular teacher left, checks the room's posted information — children present today, allergy and medical notes, rest arrangements — and then runs the room's normal sequence: arrival, circle time, centers, meals, outdoor play, rest time and the departure handoff.

The promise you are making to families is continuity, so say that in the duties: the substitute follows the classroom's schedule, routines, curriculum and positive guidance approach rather than introducing new ones.

Name the age bands the substitute would cover, not just in the title.

Covering an infant room is feeding, diapering and safe sleep routines; covering a pre-K room is centers, small groups and school-readiness work.

If your substitutes float — covering whichever room calls out that morning, or supporting at peak times when their assigned room does not need them — put that in the duties too, because float coverage is a different job from a fixed room, and the duties should say which one you are hiring for.

Include the parts of the role that sit beyond the activity plan: active supervision of the children in the room, indoors and outdoors; helping with meals, snacks and cleanup; and the written handoff — notes for the regular teacher on what you covered, what worked and anything to follow up.

If covering a classroom means being alone with the group, keep your state's rules and the background-check sequence below in view: those rules decide when a new substitute may be alone with children, so write the duties to match what your onboarding can actually deliver.

Minimum and preferred qualifications

Start the minimums from your state's rule, not from a template.

Where your state child care licensing agency sets qualification requirements for the role a substitute covers — education, experience, minimum age, pre-service or orientation training, the background check — those requirements are enforced against your license.

The title your state's rule uses for a substitute may not be "substitute teacher" at all, so confirm with your licensing agency which title fits the role you are hiring and which requirements apply to it for each age band, and phrase the line that way.

The background check is the one requirement you can write about with confidence, because the federal CCDF rule at 45 CFR 98.43 says who is covered: its definition of a child care staff member reaches anyone employed by a provider for compensation, including contract employees and self-employed individuals — so staffing-agency temps and contracted substitutes need the same checks as your permanent staff.

On timing, the same rule lets a new staff member begin work after a qualifying result on either the FBI fingerprint check or the in-state fingerprint check, but until all components clear they must be supervised at all times by someone with a qualifying background check.

States administer the rule and several are stricter — some bar any work before full clearance — so confirm your state's sequence with your licensing agency before you promise a start date, and build the check timeline into onboarding rather than writing "can start tomorrow" into the ad.

Phrase the rest of the requirement line the way the rule works: "meets [State]'s child care licensing requirements for [substitute teacher / the title your state uses]", plus the age bands.

Keep the preferred list honestly preferred.

A CDA credential, ECE credits, experience across more than one age group and prior float or substituting experience all belong under "preferred" unless your state's rule — or your program's own standard — actually requires them.

Requiring a credential your state does not require cuts out candidates who already qualify under the rule you are licensed against.

Physical requirements and schedule

Describe the physical work as the job's own essential functions: lifting and carrying children and classroom materials, working on the floor and moving up and down throughout the day, standing and walking for most of the shift, diapering and toileting routines where the age group needs them, and outdoor playground supervision.

For a substitute, add the movement between rooms: they may cover an infant room on Tuesday and a pre-K room on Wednesday, in layouts and with equipment they did not set up.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, physical requirements in a job description should describe those essential functions, and accommodation for applicants with disabilities is required unless it causes the employer significant difficulty or expense.

One line to leave out: a lifting weight written as a legal threshold.

No federal rule sets a lifting weight for childcare jobs, and no national licensing standard does either — a "must lift 40 pounds" figure is an employer practice.

If you state a number, present it as what the job itself demands rather than as a rule, and know that the ADA's accommodation obligation reaches it.

Employers with 15 or more employees are also covered by the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which requires reasonable accommodation of known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth or related conditions.

The availability section is where substitute postings succeed or fail, because it is the terms of the deal a candidate is agreeing to.

State which days you need coverage and whether the days are full days, half days or both; how far in advance assignments are offered, and how same-morning call-outs reach the list; how early a substitute arrives before the classroom day starts; and whether substitutes choose the days they work or commit to set days each week.

The more precisely the posted availability matches the coverage you actually need, the fewer first weeks fall apart on it.

How to write the pay and benefits line

Write a number, not a shrug. "Competitive pay" and "depends on experience" leave candidates to guess at your number.

A range with a real floor and a real top lets a substitute decide whether the coverage fits their week, so state the basis — hourly or daily — and what moves a substitute up your range, such as experience, a credential or a willingness to cover infant rooms.

Benchmark the range before you write it.

In BLS's Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey for May 2025, childcare workers (SOC 39-9011) earned a U.S. median of $16.82 per hour ($34,980 per year), and preschool teachers except special education (SOC 25-2011) earned a U.S. median of $18.34 per hour ($38,140 per year).

BLS publishes no wage series for substitutes as a title, so those are the nearest categories to sanity-check against — not substitute pay.

Your market is local, and the childcare substitute salary tables from the same survey price the range for your state.

In eight states, pay disclosure in the posting is not optional for covered employers. Our research verified pay-disclosure laws in eight states, each attached to the job posting or advertisement itself and set in the state's own law:

• California — employers with 15 or more employees must include the pay scale in any job posting (Labor Code 432.3).
• Colorado — the Equal Pay for Equal Work Act requires employers to disclose compensation in all job postings and notices, internal and public, including benefits information.
• New York — Labor Law 194-b requires businesses with four or more employees to list compensation ranges in postings for jobs, promotions and transfers.
• Washington — employers with 15 or more employees must disclose the wage scale or salary range and a general description of benefits in each job posting (RCW 49.58.110).
• Illinois — employers with 15 or more employees must include the pay scale and benefits in any specific job posting; a hyperlink to a public page with that information satisfies the rule (820 ILCS 112/10(b-25)).
• Minnesota — employers with 30 or more employees in Minnesota must include a good-faith salary range in job postings (Minn. Stat. 181.173).
• Massachusetts — since October 29, 2025, employers with 25 or more employees must disclose wage ranges in job postings.
• Vermont — employers with five or more employees must include the compensation or range of compensation in any advertisement of a Vermont job opening.

Tracker reports add Maryland, New Jersey, Hawaii, Washington DC, Maine, Virginia and Connecticut (from October 1, 2026), with Delaware scheduled for 2027 — our research did not confirm those against the state sources, so treat them as unconfirmed. Confirm before you post: pay-disclosure laws carry their own definitions and their own employer-size thresholds — except in Colorado, where the law applies regardless of employer size — and they change, so check the current rule with the state agency that administers it before the posting goes up.

Three of the verified states also reach past pay — Washington asks for a general description of benefits, Illinois for pay scale and benefits, and Colorado's disclosure covers benefits information — so the benefits line of your template needs writing before you post, not after.

Mistakes that shrink your applicant pool

The template can be perfect and the wording around it can still cost you candidates.

Check each of these before you publish.

• Wording that signals a protected-trait preference. Under the laws the EEOC enforces, a job ad that shows a preference based on a protected trait is illegal — the EEOC's own examples are an ad seeking "females" or "recent college graduates," which may discourage men and people over 40 from applying. Substitute postings asking for "young, energetic" or female-only staff are exactly that pattern. Describe the job — the age bands, the duties, the availability — and leave age, sex and every other protected trait out of the ad.
• No pay line. In California, Colorado, New York, Washington, Illinois, Minnesota, Massachusetts and Vermont, the law makes pay disclosure — and in three of them the benefits description — part of what a covered employer's posting must carry; every state but Colorado covers only employers at or above its own size threshold. Elsewhere, and below those thresholds, an empty pay line asks candidates to apply blind while the posting next to yours that states one lets them self-sort on the spot.
• A start-date line the background checks can't support. "Immediate start, alone with the room" is the one promise a substitute posting cannot make on its own. The federal CCDF rule covers temps and contracted subs among the staff who need checks, and it lets a new staff member begin only after one qualifying fingerprint result — supervised at all times until every component clears — and some states go further and bar any work before full clearance. Post when you need coverage; leave the first solo shift to the process your licensing agency runs.
• A lifting threshold written as a legal rule. No federal rule or national licensing standard sets a lifting weight for childcare jobs; a number in your posting is your center's own practice. State the job's actual demands instead, and keep the ADA's accommodation obligation in view — and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act's, for employers with 15 or more employees.
• Vague availability. "Must be flexible" is not an availability section. The days, the shift shape, how far ahead assignments come and how call-outs reach the list are what a candidate needs to say yes — and they are the questions serious applicants ask anyway.
• No age bands named. "Substitute wanted" tells a candidate nothing about whether they would spend the day diapering or running small groups. List the bands, and say whether the substitute picks the ages they cover or goes where the call-out is.
• A title with no search terms in it. Use the words candidates search — "childcare substitute," "daycare substitute teacher," "substitute teacher (preschool)" — rather than an internal label like "coverage support staff."
• Another state's requirements. Qualification minimums are set state by state, so a requirements list copied from a template written for a different state can misstate your own. Keep the "[State]'s licensing requirements" placeholder until you have filled it in from your licensing agency's rule.

After you post, run the coverage like a live process.

Answer every application, including the declines, and refresh or re-post when a listing ages.

Read your own ad from the other side before it goes up: would you apply to cover a room you have never met, on the terms shown?

See what candidates see on the childcare substitute jobs page, and when the posting is working, the next steps are screening and interviewing — the full process, from where to recruit to how to keep a substitute list warm, is our guide to how to hire a childcare substitute.

This page is employer information, not licensing or legal advice. Job-ad and accommodation rules come from the EEOC, the background-check rules from the federal CCDF rule at 45 CFR 98.43 as administered by state agencies, pay-disclosure rules from the state agencies that administer them, and staff qualification rules from your state child care licensing agency — confirm the current rules with each before you post.