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

Director qualifications are licensing rules, and in Minnesota they come from the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF), which licenses child care centers and monitors them for compliance; licensing moved to DCYF from the Department of Human Services.

With the move, the licensing statutes were renumbered from chapter 245A to chapter 142B, and DCYF says the requirements themselves did not change.

The director qualifications sit in the center rule, Minnesota Rules chapter 9503 (known as Rule 3), at part 9503.0031.

Minnesota's 2026 session law repeals Rule 3 and replaces it with new statute chapter 142H effective July 1, 2027; until then the current rule applies, so this page describes both.

Under the current rule, a Minnesota center director needs a high school diploma or GED and at least 9 quarter credits or 90 hours of accredited coursework in staff supervision, human relations and child development.

A college degree is not among the qualifications our research records for the rule.

From July 1, 2027, the qualifications move to new statute chapter 142H: a diploma or GED plus 12 semester credits or 120 training hours in child development, supervision, management, administration or leadership.

At that point the subject list widens and the coursework is counted in semester credits or training hours rather than quarter credits.

The experience floor is the same under the current rule and the 2027 chapter: at least 1,040 hours of staff supervision experience.

That is the only experience figure our research records for Minnesota directors, and it does not change on July 1, 2027.

One more rule matters to candidates: under current Rule 3, a director who functions as a teacher, or who develops or revises the child care program plan, must also meet the teacher qualifications in part 9503.0032.

A candidate for a teaching-director role therefore needs the classroom qualifications as well as the director ones.

The current rule asks for coursework: the 9 quarter credits or 90 hours in staff supervision, human relations and child development described above.

A director credential is not among the qualifications our research records for the current rule.

From July 1, 2027, the new chapter names credentials that satisfy the director experience and coursework requirements: a Minnesota Association for the Education of Young Children (MnAEYC) early childhood director's credential, a Child Care Aware Minnesota director's credential, or a Montessori administrator credential or diploma.

The 2026 law lists those three by name, and they stand in for the experience and coursework pieces rather than the age and diploma requirements.

The director is named in Minnesota's in-service training rule: the center director and staff working more than 20 hours per week must complete 24 hours of in-service training each calendar year, and staff working 20 hours or less must complete 12 hours.

Center staff, substitutes and unsupervised volunteers must complete pediatric first aid and pediatric CPR before unsupervised contact with a child, no later than 90 days after hire, and repeat it every second calendar year.

Directors are center staff, and Minnesota requires an enhanced child care background study for center staff: fingerprint-based Minnesota BCA and FBI checks, Minnesota predatory offender and child abuse and neglect registry checks, out-of-state abuse registry checks for every state lived in during the past five years, and NCIC and National Sex Offender Registry checks, with a new study every five years.

The training statute (142B.65) is repealed effective July 1, 2027 and replaced by chapter 142H, and our research did not extract the in-service hour totals in the 2027 text, so confirm the hours that will apply then with DCYF.

The 2027 chapter answers the on-site question directly: the director or a designee must be on site while the center is in operation, and a designee can be any program staff person who is at least 18.

Whether the current rule states the same on-site requirement is not settled in our research, so ask DCYF which rule applies to a given date.

Our research also did not surface a separate assistant-director qualification in either the current rule or the 2027 chapter, so an assistant director title on a posting reflects a center's own job design rather than a licensing category our research confirms.

Minnesota's 2026 session law (Laws 2026, chapter 127, article 12) repeals the center rule, Minnesota Rules chapter 9503, including its staff qualification parts, and replaces it with new statute chapter 142H effective July 1, 2027.

For directors, the minimum age rises from 18 to 21, and the coursework requirement moves from 9 quarter credits or 90 hours to 12 semester credits or 120 training hours in child development, supervision, management, administration or leadership.

The new chapter also names three director credentials — the MnAEYC early childhood director's credential, the Child Care Aware Minnesota director's credential and the Montessori administrator credential or diploma — that satisfy the experience and coursework requirements.

Anyone designated as a licensed center's director on July 1, 2027 is grandfathered as meeting the new qualifications for as long as they keep working at that program.

Until July 1, 2027, the current rule applies.