Bilingual Daycare Director (Portuguese)

Job Description

Job Description

Sorrisinho is a new Portuguese immersion daycare opening in Silver Spring, MD, serving infants through preschoolers. We're looking for a hands-on Center Director to lead our first classroom team and help build a program rooted in full Portuguese immersion, strong family relationships, and high-quality early care. In our first year, this role will include direct classroom instruction alongside administrative duties, as we're starting with a small staff.

Responsibilities

• Oversee daily classroom operations and ensure compliance with Maryland Office of Child Care (OCC) licensing regulations, including staff-to-child ratios
• Serve as a lead teacher in the classroom, delivering daily instruction and care — this is a working director role, especially in our first year
• Lead, schedule, and support a small teaching team
• Deliver instruction and daily interactions in Portuguese as the primary language of the classroom
• Build relationships with enrolled families and support enrollment/waitlist communication
• Maintain health, safety, and licensing documentation
• Help shape curriculum and daily routines consistent with an immersion model

Requirements

• Fluent in Portuguese (spoken and written)
• Meets Maryland OCC qualifications for a Child Care Center Director (education/experience requirements per COMAR 13A.16)
• Experience in early childhood education, ideally in a lead or director-level role
• Comfortable in a startup environment — this is a first-year center, so flexibility and initiative matter
• Available to work at least 25 hours per week

Nice to have

• Experience opening or helping launch a new child care center
• Familiarity with Brazilian, Portuguese, or other Lusophone cultural traditions to incorporate into programming

What we offer

• Competitive hourly pay, commensurate with experience
• Opportunity to shape a program from the ground up
• A close-knit, mission-driven team
• Retirement account
• Discounted access to childcare at our center

\nCompany Description

A home where Portuguese belongs

Every parent with older kids has the same story: by kindergarten, you ask in Portuguese and the answer comes back in English. Sorrisinho exists to change that, in exactly the years when a child picks up a language most easily, and in exactly the hours of the day when parents need the most help.

We hire native Portuguese speakers from the same communities as the families we serve. The music, the stories, and the traditions we share in the classroom will connect our children to their extended family's cultures and the lusophone world more broadly. Most of all, in a room where Portuguese is the ordinary language rather than the strange one, children gain more than vocabulary: friends who speak it, and the confidence to use it with their own families.

Company Description

A home where Portuguese belongs\r\n\r\nEvery parent with older kids has the same story: by kindergarten, you ask in Portuguese and the answer comes back in English. Sorrisinho exists to change that, in exactly the years when a child picks up a language most easily, and in exactly the hours of the day when parents need the most help.\r\n\r\nWe hire native Portuguese speakers from the same communities as the families we serve. The music, the stories, and the traditions we share in the classroom will connect our children to their extended family's cultures and the lusophone world more broadly. Most of all, in a room where Portuguese is the ordinary language rather than the strange one, children gain more than vocabulary: friends who speak it, and the confidence to use it with their own families.