Daycare assistant director qualifications are set state by state: where a state regulates the title, its child care licensing agency writes the minimums — an age floor, a high school diploma, counted early childhood experience — into its center licensing rules.
States that never name the title may instead qualify the director's designee — the person who acts when the director is out.
BLS describes a bachelor's degree and early childhood education experience as the typical preparation for center directors.
Do states regulate assistant directors?
Child care licensing is state licensing.
The rules that touch an assistant director's job — staff qualifications, annual training hours, who must be in the building — are written by each state's child care licensing agency, and the federal CCDF framework administered by ACF requires states to set a minimum annual number of training and professional development hours for caregivers, teachers and directors without setting the number itself (45 CFR 98.44).
Our research found no national qualification rule for the assistant director title: the requirements sit in the state rulebooks.
States that do regulate the title do it inside their center licensing rules.
West Virginia's center rules list assistant director/lead teacher among a center's job titles (78CSR1 §9) and write a qualification for it.
Colorado's rules carry a dedicated assistant director qualification line (8 CCR 1402-1 §2.214(F)), Tennessee's child care licensure rules give the title its own minimums (1240-04-01-.06), and Washington's rules hold center directors and assistant directors to the same ECE credential requirements at hire — a state certificate or scaled college credits.
A state that never names the title may still regulate the second chair through the director's designee — the person designated to act when the director is not present.
Arizona requires the director to designate a qualified designee in writing (A.A.C.
R9-5-301(B)(1)); Ohio's rules put a designated staff member in charge when the administrator leaves the premises; Utah requires a designee who is at least 18, certified in first aid and CPR, and trained as a designee.
Coverage is the operational reality the seat exists for: BLS notes that in large centers, directors and assistant directors may stagger their schedules so someone is always on site — and a rulebook that expects a decision-maker in the building needs to know who that person is and what qualifies them.
What the seat does between those rules — the day-to-day duties — is the assistant director career guide's subject.
States differ — confirm where you work
Director-designee rules: acting in the director's place
Where a state uses the designee frame, the designee's qualifications are written into the licensing rule itself — specific to the acting role, not borrowed from the title on your badge.
The rules can be precise.
Arizona requires the designation in writing and counts combinations such as 12 months of experience plus a high school diploma and 3 credit hours — or 30 workshop hours — in early childhood, with the designee at least 21 (A.A.C.
R9-5-401(2)).
Mississippi's director designee needs a high school diploma or GED and 2 years of paid experience, and may hold sole director authority for no more than 24 total hours per calendar week, with a once-a-year exception of up to 14 consecutive days.
New Jersey requires the director or a designee on the premises at all times and gives designees their own annual requirement: 20 hours of staff development.
The designee bar is not automatically the director's bar — Ohio's rules say so outright: when the administrator is not on the premises, a designated child care staff member is in charge, and the designee does not need administrator-level education.
That cuts both ways.
Holding the keys does not mean you meet the director's qualification, and meeting a designee minimum does not make you the director.
The rules also plan for the director's seat going empty.
Wyoming requires an assistant director on duty whenever the center's director is absent, and if the director leaves, the assistant director is responsible until a new director is hired within three months.
Colorado caps the substitution: in a large center whose director cannot be present 60% of any day, an assistant director must be on site, and an assistant director may substitute for a vacant director for up to 12 weeks per calendar year.
What the director's own qualification is in each of these states — the bar the designee sits beside — is collected on our director requirements page, state by state.
Typical qualifications for a daycare assistant director
Read across the states that name the title, the qualification rules combine a handful of recurring blocks: an age floor, a high school diploma or GED, a stretch of counted experience, and early childhood coursework or a credential above the diploma.
Not every state's rule uses every block, and the numbers are each state's.
| Qualification block | What state center rules name (examples) |
|---|---|
| Minimum age | Colorado: 18 · Tennessee: 18 · West Virginia: 21 · Wyoming: 21 · Arizona designee: 21 |
| Education baseline | High school diploma or GED — named in the Tennessee and Wyoming assistant director rules, the Arizona and Mississippi designee rules and West Virginia's qualified-staff definition |
| Counted experience | Colorado: 9 months (1,365 hours) as an early childhood teacher · Tennessee: 2 years · West Virginia: 1 year of relevant experience plus one further qualification (one option: 2 years of relevant work experience) · Arizona designee: 12 months in one listed combination · Mississippi designee: 2 years paid |
| Coursework or credential above the diploma | Colorado: a bachelor's degree, or half of the director coursework including two administration courses · West Virginia: a CDA or 12 ECE credits (each with 300 hours) alongside a year of experience, a Registered Apprenticeship Certificate, or 28 college credits including 9 in early childhood development · Washington: an ECE State Certificate or equivalent, or college quarter credits in ECE core competencies |
Washington shows how specific these rules get.
At hire, a director, assistant director or program supervisor must hold an ECE State Certificate (or equivalent) or college quarter credits in ECE core competencies scaled to licensed capacity — 10 credits at 12 or fewer children, 25 credits at 13 to 24, and 45 at 25 or more.
A rule amended effective August 1, 2026 sets a deadline of August 1, 2030 to complete the ECE State Certificate or equivalent, with five years from hire for anyone hired or promoted after the rule took effect.
Above the title sits the director benchmark.
BLS describes a preschool or childcare center director as typically holding a bachelor's degree and experience in early childhood education, and notes that some employers require a nationally recognized credential.
An employer can also screen above the state minimum — a degree line in a posting may be that employer's own bar rather than the state's.
None of the numbers travels between states, and they change: Washington's 2026 amendment is one example.
The figure to plan against is the one in your state's current rules, which its child care licensing agency publishes.
Training and credentials
The federal CCDF rule requires states to set a minimum annual number of training and professional development hours for caregivers, teachers and directors, and leaves the number to each state (45 CFR 98.44).
Some of these rules attach annual training numbers to the role itself: Tennessee's assistant director needs 18 annual hours, 4 of them in administration or management; New Jersey's designees need 20 hours of annual staff development; Washington's directors, assistant directors and program supervisors must complete 10 in-service hours in child development and 10 in leadership practices every 36 months after finishing the EQEL training.
Role-specific training is another layer the state rules write.
Colorado requires directors and assistant directors to complete two named courses — Working with an Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant and Introduction to Child Care Health Consultation — within 90 days of employment.
Arkansas sends its new directors and assistant directors to New Directors Orientation plus Program Administration Scale (PAS) and Environment Rating Scale (ERS) training within six months of employment.
Mississippi requires owners, directors and director designees to complete training in child care regulations, director orientation and playground safety before a new license is issued.
On credentials, each state's rule names what counts.
West Virginia's rule accepts the CDA, with 300 hours, as one route into the assistant director qualification; Washington's accepts its ECE State Certificate or an equivalent.
BLS adds the employer layer: some employers require a nationally recognized credential.
Private organizations also market director-level courses — per NECPA's course page, its National Administrator Credential (NAC) is a 45-clock-hour course for center directors and emerging leaders — but the NAC is not a government credential, and whether a state's licensing agency counts it toward that state's assistant director or director qualification is decided in that state's rules.
Training totals are state numbers
Stepping up to director
The step up to director is a qualification change before it is a title change.
The state rules on this page draw the ladder: Colorado's assistant director line accepts half of the director coursework, including two administration courses, as the alternative to a bachelor's degree — coursework written for the director qualification itself.
Wyoming's assistant director can be the responsible person in the building when the director leaves, but a new director must still be hired within three months.
Meeting your state's designee or assistant director minimum is the checkpoint, not the destination: the director requirements page linked above carries what each state asks of the director role itself.
Nationally, BLS puts a bachelor's degree and experience in early childhood education at the center of the typical director's preparation, and notes that some employers require a nationally recognized credential.
In Head Start, the bar is federal: under 45 CFR 1302.91(b), a Head Start director hired after November 7, 2016 must have at least a bachelor's degree plus experience in staff supervision, fiscal management and administration.
That rule is current law, but it is among the rules pending 2026 federal proposals would remove — so treat it as the rule for now and check the Office of Head Start's current standards.
The seat above has its own wage picture: BLS put the median annual wage for preschool and childcare center directors at $59,300 in May 2025, with employment projected to decline 3% from 2025 to 2035 and about 5,200 openings a year.
Openings for the seat you hold now are collected on the assistant director jobs board.
Career and employer information, not licensing or legal advice. Assistant director and director-designee qualifications are set by state rule and change; confirm the current requirements with your state's child care licensing agency — and with the Office of Head Start's current Program Performance Standards for Head Start roles.