Orlando parents hunting for a preschool spot are running into a hard truth: even when there is space on paper, there may not be a teacher to watch their kids. Faced with a deepening shortage of preschool teachers, centers across the city are capping enrollment or temporarily closing classrooms when staff call out and no qualified replacements are available. Small, tuition-dependent programs are left juggling ugly choices between raising pay, shrinking class sizes or asking already-stretched staff to work extra shifts.
That pressure is hitting neighborhood programs especially hard. At Little People Learning Center in West Orlando, owners Felicia and Rodnecia Jones bumped teacher pay to $16 an hour and added a $500 retention bonus, yet they still run below their licensed capacity of 28 children. Over in Lake Nona, Bright Scholars Learning Academy enrolls about 225 children and reports most teachers make at least $19 an hour, with payroll swallowing roughly 70 percent of operating income. The state chips in modest retention payments and some centers layer on small monthly bonuses, but advocates, including Olivia Weinstock, warn that substitutes are not a sustainable long-term solution, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
Partnerships and quick coverage
To keep doors open day to day, many centers are leaning on staffing platforms and local coalitions. The Early Learning Coalition of Orange County has teamed up with Tandem to cover the platform subscription for contracted providers starting June 1 and to offer professional-development modules through the service, according to Tandem. The company’s own FAQ notes that it charges a 35 percent service fee on top of each worker’s hourly rate, a hit that can strain already thin child care budgets; see Tandem.
Owners say it helps, but costs add up
Local directors say the partnership has real perks: quick payouts and a pool of on-call teachers who can step into a classroom at the last minute. Still, the convenience comes with trade-offs. Operators report that Tandem now has hundreds of teachers and registrations in Central Florida, but note that the per-shift administrative charge and repeated reliance on temporary staff can make it even harder to recruit and keep a stable full-time teacher, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
State money and national trends
What is playing out in Orlando tracks with national numbers. Procare Solutions’ 2026 business trends report found that roughly 41 percent of child care centers across the country are operating under capacity, a clear sign that staffing woes are keeping classrooms dark as often as low demand is. At the state level, lingering budget uncertainty and debates over K–12 pay raises leave big questions about how much money will actually trickle down to early-learning providers next school year, complicating any long-term hiring plans, according to Spectrum / MyNews13 and Procare Solutions.
Owners and advocates argue that fixing the problem will take steady public investment, higher base wages and benefits that make early-childhood work feel like a career instead of a stopover job. Until that happens, many Orlando centers will keep facing the same bleak choice: bring in short-term substitutes at a premium or turn families away at the door.
