What Qualifications Do You Need to Be a Daycare Director in Kansas?

Director qualifications are licensing rules, and Kansas child care licensing now runs through the Kansas Office of Early Childhood (KOEC), which took the function over from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment on July 1, 2026 under 2025 House Bill 2045, with existing licensing staff moving with it.

The governing rules are still K.A.R. 28-4, last broadly amended effective August 2, 2024.

The program director qualification options sit in K.A.R. 28-4-429, and the staffing rules that frame the role — the full-time director requirement and the administrator and assistant director thresholds — sit in K.A.R. 28-4-428.

Those rules cover child care centers and preschools; family child care homes follow a different rule set, K.A.R. 28-4-113 to 28-4-133.

KOEC says all existing licensing policies remain in effect during the transition.

Kansas writes its director qualifications as combinations — the same list for center and preschool directors — and the list depends on licensed capacity.

At a facility licensed for fewer than 24 children, a program director must be at least 18, hold a high school diploma, and meet one of the following: an associate degree or higher in early childhood education or a related field; a CDA; an ECE technical certificate; 3 months' experience plus 3 semester hours; or 6 months of direct-care experience.

At facilities licensed for 24 or more children, the options our research transcribes are a bachelor's degree in ECE or a related field plus 3 months' experience; an ECE associate degree plus 6 months; 12 semester hours plus experience or a CDA; a CDA plus 1 year; or 6 years of ECE experience — or 4 years in a licensed facility.

A bachelor's is one route, not the requirement.

Directors who were approved in Kansas before December 31, 2023 are exempt from these education and experience options altogether.

Experience can carry a Kansas director candidate on its own, and the amount depends on the size of the license.

At a facility licensed for fewer than 24 children, 6 months of direct-care experience qualifies without any early childhood credit, on top of the age-18 and high-school-diploma floor.

At 24 or more children, the experience-only routes our research transcribes are 6 years of experience in early childhood education providing direct care and supervision to children — or 4 years in a licensed facility — while the bachelor's route pairs its degree with 3 months' experience and the associate route with 6 months.

Size adds an experience demand of its own: at a facility licensed for more than 100 children, the program director needs 1 year of program administration experience.

Kansas does not route directors through a separately named state director credential in the qualification options our research transcribes — qualification runs through the education and experience combinations in K.A.R. 28-4-429.

The CDA counts inside those combinations: on its own at a facility licensed for fewer than 24 children, and with 1 year of experience at 24 or more.

An ECE technical certificate is another credential-style route at the smaller size.

Administration coursework is not a credit-hour prerequisite in the transcribed options; it enters through the annual training rule instead, which reserves 6 hours each licensure year for program administration and management.

If you hold a director credential from another state, ask KOEC how it is treated.

Each licensure year, a Kansas program director must complete 16 clock-hours of professional development training, including 6 hours in program administration and management and 4 hours in health and safety topics.

The requirement is annual, so it recurs with the facility's licensure year rather than being a one-time course.

A 2026 proposal would cut the annual requirement to 10 clock hours; our research did not confirm whether it was adopted, so treat 16 hours as the figure in the current rule and check KOEC's pages before you rely on the number.

Kansas writes its leadership staffing rules by size.

Every child care center and preschool must have a full-time program director.

At a facility licensed for more than 60 children, the director must have no conflicting duties and the facility must also have an administrator.

At more than 100 children, the director needs 1 year of program administration experience and the facility must employ an assistant program director.

Two provisions run the other way: the director of a facility licensed for fewer than 24 children may also serve as a lead teacher, and program directors approved in Kansas before December 31, 2023 are exempt from the qualification options in K.A.R. 28-4-429.

Two recent changes matter to anyone tracking Kansas director requirements.

First, 2025 House Bill 2045 created the Kansas Office of Early Childhood, and child care licensing moved to it from KDHE on July 1, 2026, with existing staff and policies carried over.

Second, Kansas proposed further regulation amendments in 2026 — a cut in annual training from 16 to 10 hours and the elimination of licensing fees, with a hearing scheduled for July 13, 2026 — and our research did not confirm whether they were adopted.

Because the proposal was not confirmed either way, confirm the current training hours and any fee with KOEC rather than assuming this page's figures have changed.