The child is dressed, the rucksack for lunch is packed, the checklist for the morning ticked off – and then it says at the door of the daycare center: “Unfortunately, you have to take your daughter home with you today, we don’t have enough staff.” This scene is something new for parents throughout the district, not least since Corona, and some have had to experience it several times in the past few months. You don’t have to ask around for a long time, then you get stories told by interns who have to lead entire groups, or by burned-out employees who are on long-term sick leave. Some stories should not find their way into the newspaper, but there are also day-care center managers who speak openly to the SZ about the problem.
“There are simply not enough people applying,” says Francine Schechner, deputy head of the Ebersberger Arche, for example. And among the applicants there are often some who are not sufficiently qualified. Schechner says that groups in the Arche have repeatedly had to close in recent months, sometimes for a few days, sometimes for a week. “There are many parents who are understanding,” says Francine Schechner, “others are not.”
When the sick are back, the others drop out – a vicious circle
Actually, three teachers are responsible for a group of 25 children in the Arche Ebersberg. In the event of illness, colleagues from other groups often step in; but it doesn’t always work. An emergency group, for example, can only be opened if the staff are available, according to the deputy head – and the daycare center simply doesn’t have that at the moment. Schechner also sees the question as problematic: Which child is then allowed to go to the emergency group and which is not?
Another problem is sick leave among female colleagues, which is usually higher than usual at this time of year. “If two or three people are sick, the others have to work more – and they’re out when the others are back,” describes Francine Schechner, “it’s a vicious circle.”
What increases the pressure on the staff is the increased demands with which parents approach the daycare centers. According to Schechner, many mothers and fathers are expecting more and more things from childcare facilities that they could actually do with their children at home. For example, that children play outside every day, do handicrafts or are trained in foreign languages. That, however, says Francine Schechner, is not the main focus of Arche: “We want the children to have a nice day and that they are encouraged socially and emotionally.” Arche is currently looking for a teacher. With great luck, as the manager says, they have now found two candidates who will soon start working in the facility.
Training to become an educator takes a long time and is poorly paid
Large institutions that operate several facilities in the district are also clearly feeling the shortage of staff. For example, Christian Althoff, Head of Social Services in the Ebersberg district association of the Bavarian Red Cross (BRK), reports that there are always vacancies in the 18 facilities in the district. “If an employee falls ill or becomes pregnant, a large gap opens up immediately,” he says. There is often no response to job advertisements. The current sick leave due to the flu wave is also massive. “We all notice the traces of the last two years,” says Althoff. The pandemic was very exhausting for all employees.
When asked, the Ebersberg town hall said that basically each of the four crèches and seven kindergartens in the district town was struggling with staffing problems – simply because there were no staff to be found. On the one hand, the training takes a long time and is poorly paid.
“We have had two crèche groups empty since September,” says Ingrid Kastner with regret in her voice. The manager of the day-care center at the Poing family center talks about four vacancies and the difficulties of finding someone at all. “The job market is empty,” she says. The measures, for example that educators could also qualify on an alternative educational path, would only take effect in a few years.
According to the Corona regulation, pregnant employees are immediately sent on sick leave
In addition, the pandemic continues to influence personnel policy in the daycare centers: If an employee is pregnant, according to the Corona regulation, she is usually taken out of operation immediately. Many employees are also overworked and prone to illness. Since masks no longer have to be worn, streptococci and noroviruses have had an easy time again.
It took a while for Gabriele Pfanzelt to count how many vacancies the 19 day care centers of the Ebersberg district association of workers’ welfare (Awo) currently have. “About seventeen,” she finally says. Pfanzelt is responsible for children and youth and reports that some groups in the Awo facilities were not even opened. “We have already reduced the opening hours to 4 p.m. in all houses,” she says. This is intended to bundle the employees who are still there and protect them from shift work – “so that the staff does not break away from exhaustion”.
After Corona it went well for a while, now you get the bill for this time. Gabriele Pfanzelt finds clear words with regard to the parents: “The security of a kindergarten place, as it was before the pandemic, no longer exists today.” Today, the families are obliged to go into the care. You always have to have a plan B: What do I do if the day care center can’t look after my child today? “We all have to bear the consequences,” said Gabriele Pfanzelt.
The teams are all at their breaking point, says Gabriele Pfanzelt, an Awo manager
The teams in the daycare centers are all at their breaking point. It is up to the management of a day care center to check whether the three most important points are guaranteed – child protection, the duty of supervision and good teamwork. At Awo, attempts were made to get the parents on board from the start in order to make shortened opening hours tolerable for everyone. Most would support this, but sometimes you also hear sentences like “But I have a right to it!”
Gabriele Pfanzelt fears that the shortage of staff will get much worse in view of the legal entitlement to all-day care for children of primary school age, which is to be introduced gradually from August 2026. “It’s crazy,” she comments. But she doesn’t want to look to the future that gloomily either: thanks to Corona, most daycare centers had smaller groups and more time for team meetings. “We saved this momentum over the Corona period.”