What is your Ratio?

[CEmom]

What is your ratio of staff to campers? How strict do you keep your ratio? What about special needs kids? Do they change how you do ratio's?

Last year we had me, two adults, three teens and 20 kids and I felt that if we added more kids we would need more staff. But of those 20 kids I'd say 5 were very high energy and 2 were special needs.

Our goal is to have 40 kids but I wonder about staff numbers

Thanks
Alissa

[GeekGirl]

What is your ratio of staff to campers? How strict do you keep your ratio? What about special needs kids? Do they change how you do ratio's?

Last year we had me, two adults, three teens and 20 kids and I felt that if we added more kids we would need more staff. But of those 20 kids I'd say 5 were very high energy and 2 were special needs.

Our goal is to have 40 kids but I wonder about staff numbers

Thanks
Alissa
Hi CEmom!
I'm in California, and we try and follow the same laws governing schools/day cares, even though we are not required to do so. But safety and preventing an accusation from happening are the top priorities. Our VBS is about 120-150 kids (including a preschool program for our moms who volunteer for VBS). Here's our staffing: Birth to 2 years: 1 adult per 2 kids. 2 yrs to 4 yrs: 1 adult per 3-4 kids. Elementary age (kindergarten thru 5th grade): 1 adult per 10-12 children. For Kindergarten, first and second grades, I take the group and split it into two per grade level, but keep those groups together. Each group has one adult, and a helper who is adult or high school. Each group will have max 15 kids. I've never had to turn anyone away, and certainly pray I never have to. If need be, I will, with parent permission, move the child into another grade level. Like moving a 1st grader into a 2nd grade group that would be less impacted.

For special needs kids, I usually require an aide to work one-on-one with the child. So this doesn't impact my staffing very much. But most of our special needs kids are VERY special needs (autism, wheel-chair bound, etc).

Do you split your campers into different groups? Sometimes "divide and conquer" is the way to go - and they can't feed off each other, ya know?

[cathyc]

We are a small church & if our VBS gets above 50 kids, we're having an enormous year. We divide the kids into 4 groups: 2 for preschool (including next year's kindergarten) and 2 elementary. Both preschool groups are all ages; we just try to keep even amounts in the groups with an average group size of 8. The elementary are divided into 1st-3rd & 4th-6th with an average group size of 12. We have 2 group leaders for each preschool group & 1 for each elementary group. We also count in the leaders at the activity the group is visiting for the ratio. Most activities have 1-3 leaders so our smallest ratio is 2.67 for preschool & 6:1 for elementary. We have a couple of people who are "hall monitors" so they count in the ratio when the groups are in transit. I know this is a long explanation but it works for us.

[Christie3131]

Hi,

We tried an experiment last year and it worked extremely well. We're going to be doing it again this year. The grade 1-6 kids are not grouped in age specific groupings. We put one of each grade in a group. If there are kids who bring a friend that's the same age, then we place them together, but we try not to have more than 2 kids the same age in a group. I was hesitant to try this last year, but it was a huge success.

Each age group brought special skills that the other ages didn't have. The older kids helped the younger ones, the younger ones, kept the "kid" like thinking in the group. If may have found in the past that sometimes when you put a bunch of grade 5 & 6 kids together they can get an attitude of "this is uncool" and destroy the entire feel of the event. This doesn't happen when you mix the ages up. It was awesome how well they all worked together. There weren't as many discipline issues as in previous years either. I also found that the grade 5 & 6 kids started to take a leadership role in the groups too.

With all of that said our ratios work out to be 6:1 in the elementary kids and 4:1 in the preschool age.

Christie

[kidstime805]

We have a number of volunteers who are reluctant to take leadership roles, but they love kids. We often ask them to be a buddy for a child with special needs, or the child that needs a little more direction and help. Other than that, we try to have one adult with a teen helper for each group of children (no more than 20-24 kids in a group) who rotate. Plus, there is the adult and helper who are the leaders for each center the kids rotate to. We like to keep our groups similar in age because of the life application and Bible discussions. The real-life application of the Bible is very different for a first grader and a fourth or fifth grader.

[raineyday]

We have a small VBS (averages 45 - 50). For our preschool class we have one adult teacher and 2 teenage helpers for about 12-15 kids. For the remainder of our classes we have one adult and one teenage helper for 12-15 kids. We are very fortunate to always have extra helpers roaming the church who can move into a classroom if the need arises.

[nsdnjbl]

We are doing something different this year. We are doing a weekend VBS. We are only planning on 30 kids tops. So far there are 2 of us, so the ratio would be 2:15. I know the highschool kids will help care for the kids.

[Mari-Jo]

We have 2 adult volunteers and 1 -2 teen volunteers for each group. 1 adult takes the "lead" role. Each group is anywhere from 15-28 kids. That is a ratio of 1:5-7. Also, at each station, there are 2 adult leaders. (Craft leaders, Snack leaders, Recreation leaders, Bible Story leaders, Bible Games leaders) This is a big help. I did discover that the adults often do not give the teens the workload they can carry. If the groups are subdivided (5-7 kids are "assigned" to one each of the 3 or 4 group leaders) then the mental and physical load is decreased for the adult that has agreed to be the main group leader. They still take the lead of all the kids but the subdividing helps lighten the load. It is also great training for the teens who still have an adult there to work with.