Business

Childcare Center Ops

A 90-minute, 4-round basic Express simulation on a young assistant director's first semester running a licensed 60-child child-care center: staffing every classroom to the Texas child/caregiver ratios through breaks, naps and absences (26 TAC §746.1601, §746.1507), pricing tuition by age group from the cost of each

4 rounds Undergraduate English, Español

Preview

About this simulation

A 90-minute, 4-round basic Express simulation on a young assistant director's first semester running a licensed 60-child child-care center: staffing every classroom to the Texas child/caregiver ratios through breaks, naps and absences (26 TAC §746.1601, §746.1507), pricing tuition by age group from the cost of each room with subsidized seats, writing a family handbook, covering a flu week without going over ratio, making the professional's report of suspected abuse within 48 hours without delegating it (Tex.

Fam. Code §261.101(b)), telling families about a biting incident the same day (26 TAC §746.307), billing on time and keeping trained teachers through the spring, for high-school Career and Technical Education in early childhood education and students preparing for the Child Development Associate (CDA) credential.

Mateo Arredondo, 19, the fictional assistant director of the fictional Cottonwood Trail Early Learning Center in Dallas, Texas, runs the center through the fall of 2027 with its director, Loretta Vansickle.

Round by round you decide the staffing plan and the enrollment, how to cover two sick calls and what goes in the family handbook, how a teacher's suspicion is reported and how a bite is told to families, and how to manage the money and the teachers for spring; at each decision point the center's typical week is projected again with the decisions taken so far.

Each round is scored on the children staying for spring, the assistant director's hours over a 40-hour week, the family withdrawal risk, the weekly surplus and family trust, with open violations shown alongside; planning or running a room over ratio, or leaving the report to someone else, caps the score. English with Spanish.

What participants learn

After the session, participants will be able to:

  • Plan classroom staffing that keeps every room within licensing ratios from first drop-off to last pickup, with a floater for breaks and naps and a substitute list for absences
  • Set tuition by age group from the cost of each room, with subsidized seats at the workforce board's rates and billing on time
  • Communicate with families through a handbook every family signs and same-day incident reports that never name other children
  • Justify why each professional who suspects abuse must report it personally within 48 hours with factual notes and without investigating
  • Recommend how to keep trained teachers through the CDA credential, a raise for those who stay and planning time before growing enrollment

Who it is for

An introductory simulation that assumes no prior knowledge of the subject, designed for undergraduate courses. It also works in vocational and high-school programmes and in onboarding sessions.

How a session runs

  1. The instructor creates a session from the Eureka dashboard and invites the participants.
  2. Participants play 4 rounds. In each one they submit their decisions and the simulation calculates the results. The first round opens with: August: the staffing plan and the enrollment.
  3. The simulation can be run in English, Español.
  4. The instructor follows each participant's progress and results from the dashboard, and uses the class results for the debrief.

Decisions participants make

The decisions participants make during the simulation:

  • The classrooms
  • The seats and the tuition
  • Two caregivers out at 6:15 a.m.
  • The family handbook
  • What Keisha saw
  • The biting in the toddler room
  • The money
  • The teachers for spring

Ready to use Childcare Center Ops with your students?

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