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

Every line in a toddler teacher posting does one job: help the right candidate recognize the room they would run and help the wrong one screen themselves out.

A toddler seat is a routines job layered over constant motion, and a generic posting hides that from exactly the two people you care about — the preschool-side teacher who is not ready for it, and the toddler-experienced teacher who is.

The three sections below carry most of the weight, and the template further down assembles them into a posting you can publish.

Key duties and responsibilities

Write the duties the way a toddler day actually runs, from arrival to departure: drop-off routines, meals and feeding, diapering and toilet learning, outdoor play, nap routines and the pickup handoff to families — with the play, narration and small-group activities between them.

A candidate can then compare the day against rooms they have already run, and the interview questions you ask later can point back at the same list.

Name the toddler-specific demands in the duties rather than saving them for the interview: supervision that keeps pace with newly mobile climbers, positive guidance for biting and peer conflict, toilet learning run as a calm routine instead of a standoff, and drop-off separation handled without a battle.

A teacher who has only worked with older children has no other way to see these are the job — the duties list is where they find out, and self-screening at the posting is cheaper than a mismatch discovered in the room.

Include the parts of the role that sit beyond the activity plan: active supervision of the children in the room, delivering the curriculum your program uses, observing and documenting what children do, communicating with families, keeping the room clean and safe, and how the role works alongside any assistant, aide or floater assigned to the room.

If the seat is the lead — owning the room's routines and directing a second adult — say so here, and note that the room runs inside the toddler staff-to-child caps your state's licensing rule sets, because that arithmetic is what makes the seat urgent to fill.

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 title — 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 [toddler teacher / lead teacher]", plus the age band.

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 [State]'s timeline." Confirm before you post: the qualifications, training hours and background-check steps your state sets for this title 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 one preferred line that maps directly to this room is toddler experience itself: "previous experience with toddlers in a licensed center" is what separates a candidate who has run this day from one who has run a great day three rooms over.

Physical requirements and schedule

Describe the physical work as the job's own essential functions: lifting toddlers onto changing tables and up from the floor, carrying children and classroom materials, working down at toddler height and getting back up all day, moving quickly across the room, diapering and toilet-learning routines, and outdoor playground supervision.

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 be able to lift [X] 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 schedule section is easy to leave vague, and toddler rooms punish vagueness twice — coverage breaks pull someone out of a room that cannot pause.

State the days, the shift hours, whether opening or closing coverage rotates through the role, how breaks and float coverage actually work, and any expectation around nap-time windows.

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

How to write the pay and benefits line

Write a range, not a shrug. "Competitive salary" and "depends on experience" leave candidates to guess — and a guess is not a reason to spend an evening on an application.

A range with a real floor and a real top lets a candidate decide in seconds whether the job fits, so state the basis — hourly or salaried — and what moves a teacher up the range, such as experience, a credential or added responsibility for the room.

Benchmark the range before you write it. "Toddler Teacher" is one of the reported job titles O*NET lists under childcare workers (SOC 39-9011) — that is the occupation line the toddler seat benchmarks against.

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 an hour ($34,980 a year) and preschool teachers except special education (SOC 25-2011) earned a U.S. median of $18.34 an hour ($38,140 a year); the childcare-worker line is the one our salary data maps this role to.

Both figures are national, and your market is local: the toddler teacher salary tables from the same survey are where you 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.

Note that three of the verified states 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 toddler 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. Toddler-room postings asking for a "young, energetic" teacher or female-only staff 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. For wording that sells the seat without filtering on who fills it, our childcare job ad examples show the pattern applied to early-education postings.
• 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 toddler 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 requirements list copied from a template written for a different state 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 degree or credential 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 — for a toddler room, a stated toddler-experience preference does the sorting a credential requirement pretends to.
• Vague duties. "Must love children" describes every applicant in the pool. The toddler duties list from the template — biting guidance, toilet learning, drop-off handoffs, coverage — is what lets a candidate tell whether they have already done this job.
• Titles nobody searches. Use the words candidates search — "toddler teacher," "lead teacher," "toddler room" — rather than an internal level name. If your center calls the seat "Room 2 Lead," the posting still needs the searchable title in it.

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 toddler teacher jobs to see how your posting reads next to the ones around it.

From there the next steps are screening, a working observation in the toddler room and the offer, and the full sequence — qualifications to check, pay to offer, how to screen — is our guide to how to hire a toddler 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.