Attention Early Childcare Education Community: Support is needed for a child care apprenticeship program from our partners in Early Childhood Education at Harford Community College.
Harford Community College is in the final stages of creating a Child Care Apprenticeship program. This program will provide apprentices with all the training required by Office of Child Care to be a lead teacher for birth through school-age plus the 45-hour Administration Course at no cost to apprentices or employers. All courses except CPR & first aid and Medication Administration will be offered fully online; so, apprentices may complete the work at times of day and days of the week which are convenient to them and from anywhere in the state. Apprentices may be current employees interested in career advancement or new hires. We will be recruiting interested individuals from Harford County but partnering employers are encouraged to recruit from their community, as well. At this point, we are seeking signed agreements from employers who are interested in employing an apprentice. In brief, employers are agreeing to:
• Employ apprentices full-time. You may still fire an apprentice for poor work performance or due to a reduction in enrollment.
• Start apprentices at a salary equivalent to 85% of the salary you identify as the average salary you pay to your lead teachers. You may pay more.
• Pay individuals who successfully complete the 18-month apprenticeship program the same salary as the average salary you pay to your lead teachers. You may pay more.
• Provide raises every six months. You may pay more.
• Assign each apprentice a lead teacher to mentor them and ensure that the apprentices are given on the job training in the skills identified in the apprenticeship agreement (licensing requirements and best practices).
If you are interested in potentially employing an apprentice, please sign the attached agreements and send them to Laura Hutton, [email protected]. The agreements needed are the Employer Acceptance Agreement and the Employer Acceptance Supplement, both available below. Sample completed forms are also available below so that you know what information goes in each section. In the section labeled “journeyman,” please complete with information regarding your employees who are lead teachers.
Completing these forms does not commit you to employing an apprentice. But, if you do employ an apprentice, it will commit you to adhering to the standards (also provided below). More specifically, you would need to adhere to the information in Appendix A (starting on page 10). This lists the skills and information that you would provide to the apprentices through their on-the-job training. Information about the coursework HCC is commiting to providing is in Appendix B (starting on page 12).
Information regarding the salary you would be committing to pay is in Appendix C (starting on page 16). You would use the average lead teacher salary at your program to determine the Journeyworkers rate (instead of the amount which is listed on the standards as an example). When the apprentice is first hired, you would need to pay at least 85% of that rate. After 1,000 work hours, you would need to pay at least 88% of that rate, and so on.
If you have any questions, please call or text Laura Hutton at 443-504-9639. We’re hoping to get our proposal approved at the March Maryland Apprenticeship Board meeting. In order to do this, we need to try to get the paperwork to the board this week.
Thank you for all of your support of this initiative.
Employer Acceptance Supplement
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