Preschool teacher job description template (duties, qualifications, schedule)

Every section of a preschool teacher posting does one job: help a candidate who has run a preschool room recognize it, and help one who has not screen themselves out.

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

The same skeleton serves a licensed center, a standalone preschool or a daycare-style program; the setting belongs in the About line, and the title stays one candidates recognize.

Key duties and responsibilities

Write the duties the way the preschool day actually runs, from arrival to departure: drop-off and free-choice time, circle time, learning centers, small-group activities, outdoor play, meals, rest or quiet time, afternoon activities and the pickup handoff to families.

A candidate can then set your day against rooms they have already run, and your interview notes can point back to the same list.

Say what makes the preschool room different from the rooms below it: school-readiness work delivered through play — early literacy, counting and number sense, fine-motor projects, turn-taking and self-help skills — under the curriculum your program uses.

Name the curriculum in the posting when you can, so candidates who already know it can say so in their application.

Then the parts of the role that sit beyond the activity plan: active supervision indoors and out, observing and documenting what children do and sharing it with families, positive guidance consistent with your behavior policy, keeping the room clean and safe, and — where you staff one — directing an assistant, aide or floater through the day.

If the seat plans the week and answers for the room, say so: that is a lead seat.

If it supports someone who does, post the seat you actually have.

The duties list is where the difference becomes visible, long before the first day.

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 teacher seat — education, experience, minimum age, pre-service or orientation training, the background check — it enforces them against your license, and what it sets differs from state to state.

Phrase the line the way the rule works: "meets [State]'s child care licensing requirements for [preschool teacher / lead teacher]".

That wording stays correct wherever your center operates, and it points candidates at the same rule you checked.

List the background check and any required training as conditions of employment, with the timing left to your state's process: "completion of [State]'s required background checks" and "[State]'s required pre-service or orientation training, completed on your state's timeline." Confirm before you post: the qualifications, training and background-check steps your state sets for the title and age band you are hiring are enforced by your state child care licensing agency, and they change — confirm them with the agency before the requirements go into a posting.

Keep the preferred list honestly preferred.

A CDA credential, ECE credits or an early childhood degree belong under "preferred" unless your state's rule for the title — or your program's own standard — actually requires them.

Requiring a credential your state does not require cuts every candidate who qualifies under the rule you are licensed against.

The same honesty applies to the heading: "preschool lead teacher" belongs on a seat that plans curriculum and directs an assistant, not on one that does not.

Physical requirements and schedule

Describe the physical work as the job's own essential functions: lifting and carrying children and classroom materials, working down at the children's level and moving up and down throughout the day, standing and walking for most of the shift, and outdoor playground supervision in the seasons your program goes outside.

Toileting help belongs on the list only if your program expects it — write the line your room actually lives with.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, physical requirements in a job description should describe those essential functions, and the EEOC requires accommodation for applicants with disabilities 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's own practice, so if you state a number, present it as what the job itself demands rather than as a rule.

A second accommodation law reaches the same line: employers with 15 or more employees are covered by the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act — effective June 27, 2023, with the EEOC's regulation effective June 18, 2024 — which requires reasonable accommodation of known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth or related conditions.

The schedule section is where preschool offers can come apart, because the program day and the shift you need covered are not always the same thing.

State the days, the shift hours, whether the seat covers extended care before or after the program day, how opening and closing rotate, and how breaks and float coverage work.

The more precisely the posted schedule matches the one you run, the fewer offers come apart on it later.

How to write the pay and benefits line

Write a range, not a shrug. "Competitive salary" and "depends on experience" hand the decision back to the candidate with nothing to decide on; a range with a real floor and a real top lets them tell in seconds whether the job fits.

State the basis — hourly or salaried — and what moves a teacher up the range, such as experience, a credential like the CDA, or taking the lead seat over an assistant.

Benchmark the range before you write it.

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

Where your program sits changes who you are bidding against: within private child care services (NAICS 6244), the preschool-teacher median was $17.72 per hour, while preschool teachers in elementary and secondary schools — public pre-K settings — had a May 2025 median of $27.29 per hour ($56,750 a year).

Those are national medians, not your market; the preschool teacher salary tables from the same survey price the range for your state.

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

• California — employers with 15 or more employees must include the pay scale for a position 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.

Secondary trackers report more states adding posting rules, including some with 2026 and 2027 effective dates; our research did not confirm those against the state sources, so treat any state outside the eight above as unconfirmed and check before you post without a range. Confirm before you post: pay-disclosure laws carry their own definitions and employer-size thresholds — Colorado's applies regardless of size — and they change, so check the current rule with the state agency that administers it before the posting goes up.

Some of the eight also reach the benefits line — Washington asks for a general description of benefits, Illinois for pay scale and benefits, and Colorado's disclosure covers benefits information — so the benefits section of your template needs writing before you post, not after, and your own state's rule may reach benefits too.

Mistakes that shrink your applicant pool

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

Check each of these before the posting goes live.

• 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. Preschool postings that ask for "young, energetic" teachers or an all-female room are exactly that pattern. Describe the job — the room, the duties, the schedule — 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 Washington, Illinois and Colorado at least, 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 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.
• Another state's requirements. Qualification minimums are set state by state, so a preschool teacher job description copied from another state's template can misstate your own. Keep the "[State]'s licensing requirements for [title]" placeholder until you have filled it in from your licensing agency's rule.
• Credential inflation. Requiring a CDA or a degree your state does not require for the title removes candidates who qualify under the rule you are actually licensed against. Put it under "preferred" unless your program genuinely requires it.
• Vague duties. "Must love children" describes every applicant in the pool. The duties list — arrival to departure, in the preschool day's own order — is what lets a candidate tell whether they have already done this job.
• Titles nobody types. Post the seat under the words candidates search — "preschool teacher" or "preschool lead teacher" — not an internal level name. The setting (center, preschool, daycare) belongs in the body, where it reads as information rather than doing the title's job.

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

Answer every application, including the declines — a posting that goes quiet teaches candidates to skip your next one — and refresh or re-post when a listing ages.

Read your own ad from the other side before it goes up: browse preschool teacher jobs to see how it reads next to the postings around it.

From there the work is screening and interviewing, and the full process — the seat, the qualifications, the pay, the recruiting and the terms that keep a teacher — is our guide to how to hire a preschool teacher.

This page is employer information, not licensing or legal advice. Job-ad and accommodation rules come from the EEOC, 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.