You finally found her. The perfect candidate. She interviewed well, passed her background check, showed up on time for orientation. You were so excited to get her into ratio.
And then she didn’t come back after lunch.
Or she made it 30 days and quietly stopped showing up. Or she’s still there, but three months in she’s still asking the same questions, still not following your systems, still struggling with things that should be second nature by now.
Here’s what I know: This isn’t always about the teacher. Sometimes it’s about the onboarding.
The Day I Heard My Own Onboarding (And Cringed)
I was walking down the hallway at ScribbleTime recently when I heard our trainer—who is absolutely amazing at her job—reading through our preschool onboarding checklist with a new hire.
Of course we had a checklist. You know me. Systems for everything.
But as I listened to her go through the entire thing—safety protocols, health procedures, curriculum expectations, classroom management, licensing requirements, emergency procedures—I stopped in my tracks.
Oh my God. That’s so overwhelming.
I kept walking and ran into my program director. Before I could say anything, she looked at me and said, “Did you hear that?”
“I did.”
“Oh my God, we really need to break it up,” she said. “I’d be so overwhelmed too.”
And here’s the thing: This wasn’t the trainer’s fault. It was mine.
As the leader, I had created a comprehensive checklist (which was good), but I had never told her to break it into pieces. I had never said, “Just do this section today and that section tomorrow.” I just handed her the whole thing and expected her to figure it out.
That day, we completely rebuilt our onboarding system.
Why This Matters More Than You Think
I’m going to share something personal with you. My daughter is 24 now, but growing up she was diagnosed with ADHD, sensory integration disorder, anxiety, depression, and severe executive function disorder.
Her backpack was a disaster. Her locker was a mess. She couldn’t get herself ready on time. Homework would be in there somewhere—or it wouldn’t.
I worked with a therapist who suggested checklists and systems. And here I was, a systems expert who had spent 11 years at a bank organizing administrative processes, and I hadn’t thought to give my own child the tools she needed.
So we started building systems for her. Checklists. Step-by-step processes. Breaking big things into small pieces.
Today, she’s incredibly successful. She still has ADHD and executive function challenges—you don’t grow out of those things. But now when she gets overwhelmed, she tells me, “I’m going to make a checklist.”
That’s my girl.
Here’s what that taught me as a business owner: If I needed to break things down for my daughter to help her succeed, why wasn’t I doing the same thing for my staff?
The Difference This Makes
I’m not saying you should babysit your team. I don’t expect anyone to babysit my daughter at her job. If she’s not performing, she should be held accountable just like anyone else.
But I do expect her employer to set her up for success. Clear expectations. Good systems. Support that helps her do her job well.
And that’s exactly what we owe our teachers.
Not everyone has ADHD or anxiety or executive function challenges. But here’s the truth: Even if I came to work at your center tomorrow, if you just talked at me for three hours straight on my first day, I wouldn’t retain half of it.
Why? Because I’d be trying to do the right thing, but I’d be overwhelmed. I’d miss things. I’d forget things. And then I’d feel behind before I even got started.
What We Changed (And What Happened Next)
Want to know exactly how we restructured our onboarding? What we do on Day 1, Day 2, Day 3? How we check in without it taking hours? Why we chose specific people to lead different parts of the process?
I’m walking through the whole system in this week’s podcast episode. Including:
- How to break your onboarding into daily chunks that actually make sense
- The three-person check-in approach that catches problems early
- Why predictable routines reduce anxiety for new hires (and lead teachers)
- The questions we ask at the end of each day that take 2 minutes but make a massive difference
- How we’ve measured the improvement through surveys (and what new hires are saying now)
This isn’t about making onboarding longer. It’s about making it better. Take a listen to the podcast to dig deeper into the topic and see how you can improve your on-boarding.
