Vickie Greco has spent 40 years teaching preschoolers and toddlers, a career span nearly unheard of in an industry where low wages and burnout push most workers out within a few years.

Staff and families at Mountain Park KinderCare Learning Center on Monroe Parkway celebrated Greco's milestone at the end of July, according to the Lake Oswego Review. Greco, 66, started teaching in 1985 and has worked at several KinderCare locations, including a Children's World center that KinderCare later acquired. She has been at the Mountain Park site for the past five years.

"As long as I am able, as long as they want me here, as long as my little kiddos want me here, I'll be here," Greco told the Review. "It's been fun."

Her longevity stands out in a sector under severe strain. Oregon childcare workers earned an average of $38,000 in 2025, according to state employment data cited by OPB in July.

Robin Taylor, executive director of the Oregon Association for the Education of Young Children, told OPB that infant care has some of the highest turnover in the field due to physical and emotional demands and low pay, and that staffing shortages force some classrooms to operate below capacity.

Center director Lisa Ritter told the Review that Greco's dedication is evident the moment anyone walks into her classroom. Ritter said Greco has shown up every day for four decades ready to care for children, support families and help teammates.

Greco teaches preschoolers ages 3 to 5 at the nationally accredited center, which serves children from 6 weeks to 12 years old.

She rejects rote reading in favor of improvised storytelling. In one exercise she has repeated every year, she opens a blank book and narrates a story from scratch while students watch wide-eyed.

Her approach to families is equally deliberate: when new parents arrive, she makes a point of telling them something positive their child did that day.

Greco told the Review that the children of 2026 are much the same as those she taught in 1985. The biggest changes over four decades, she said, have come in parenting and society, not in the kids themselves.

The field keeps changing around her. KinderCare Learning Companies, headquartered in Lake Oswego, operates more than 2,600 early learning centers across 41 states and the District of Columbia. The publicly traded company (NYSE: KLC) reported approximately $2.7 billion in revenue for its most recent fiscal year but posted a net loss, according to financial data site StockTitan. The company is scheduled to release official second-quarter results Friday, Aug. 14.

Mountain Park KinderCare is open Monday through Friday, 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., at 11 Monroe Pkwy. in Oswego Towne Square. Families can reach the center at 503-636-4077.