The California Child Development Permit is a six-level credential the Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) issues to early care and education staff.
State-funded Title 5 child development programs require it, and under Title 22 — the rules that govern every licensed California center — holding one counts as a route to qualifying as a teacher or director.
The levels run Assistant, Associate Teacher, Teacher, Master Teacher, Site Supervisor and Program Director.
What is the Child Development Permit?
The Child Development Permit is California's own credential for early care and education work, issued by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing.
It is not a license to operate a program — California licenses child care centers and family child care homes through the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) Child Care Licensing Program, whose center rules sit in Title 22, Division 12 of the California Code of Regulations.
The permit is a staff qualification that says where you stand on a ladder of classroom and leadership responsibility.
That ladder is the permit's whole logic.
Each level — Assistant, Associate Teacher, Teacher, Master Teacher, Site Supervisor, Program Director — is its own permit with its own education and experience requirements, which the CTC publishes in its Child Development Permit matrix.
The Assistant Permit is the entry rung of the ladder; the two top permits qualify their holders to direct a licensed California center.
Because each level is earned separately, the permit doubles as a career map: you can start with a short block of coursework, keep working, and add the units and experience the next level asks for.
The sections below walk through the six levels, where a permit is actually required (not every California childcare job needs one), the units and experience behind each level, how to apply, and how renewal works.
The six Child Development Permit levels
The matrix names six permits, each earned on its own requirements.
Here they are in order, with what our research documented for each:
- Child Development Assistant Permit — the entry rung. It takes six semester units of early childhood education or child development, or completion of an approved HERO/ROP child development program.
- Child Development Associate Teacher Permit — Option 1 requires 12 semester units of ECE/child development coursework (excluding field work), including at least one 3-unit course in each core area, plus 50 days of experience.
- Child Development Teacher Permit — one of the three permits the Title 22 center rules name as qualifying a teacher in a licensed center.
- Child Development Master Teacher Permit — also named in Title 22 as a qualifying permit for center teachers.
- Child Development Site Supervisor Permit — one of the two permits that qualify a holder to direct a licensed California center without the separate unit-and-experience routes.
- Child Development Program Director Permit — the second directing permit. Option 1 requires a bachelor's degree, 6 units of administration/supervision of child development programs, 2 units of adult supervision, and one year of site supervisor experience.
Our research documented the Assistant, Associate Teacher and Program Director requirements in detail.
For the Teacher, Master Teacher and Site Supervisor levels, the CTC's Child Development Permit leaflet is the authoritative list of unit and experience requirements — check it before you plan coursework, because the requirements are specific enough that a one-unit shortfall matters.
The permit matrix is being revised
Which jobs require a permit: Title 5 vs Title 22
California runs two separate staff-qualification systems, and the two are easy to merge.
Title 22 is the licensing rulebook the CDSS Child Care Licensing Program applies to every licensed child care center.
Title 5 is the set of regulations that state-funded child development programs operate under, and those programs follow Title 5 staffing ratios rather than the Title 22 teacher-child ratios. (The rule text still describes these programs as funded by the California Department of Education; our research notes that most of them, except State Preschool, moved to CDSS in 2021, which is why both department names show up in the field.)
The permit line runs between the two.
In state-funded Title 5 programs, the Child Development Permit is required.
In a privately owned Title 22 center, it is optional — one route among several.
A Title 22 teacher can start work with at least 6 semester units of ECE or child development, or with a Child Development Assistant Permit, and then complete at least 2 units each semester until fully qualified.
Fully qualified status takes 12 semester units covering the three core areas plus at least six months of work experience.
The same rule accepts a current CDA credential with the appropriate age-level endorsement plus six months of experience, or a Child Development Associate Teacher, Teacher or Master Teacher Permit.
Directors get four routes, and the permit is the fourth: the Title 22 rules let a center employ a director who holds a Child Development Site Supervisor Permit or Program Director Permit in place of the unit-and-experience combinations.
On those other routes, a year of qualifying teaching experience means at least 3 hours per day for at least 100 days in a calendar year, as a teacher supervised by someone who would qualify as a director.
If you have been searching for how to become a "certified preschool teacher" in California, that is the map: in a state-funded Title 5 preschool program, the permit is the qualification; in a private center, semester units or a CDA qualify you without any permit at all.
One more boundary: the permit covers your qualification, not the rest of the licensing file.
Center staff still need a criminal record clearance or exemption from CDSS, with fingerprints going to the California Department of Justice and the FBI, plus a health screening that includes a tuberculosis test.
Whenever children are present — at the center or offsite — Title 22 requires at least one staff member trained in pediatric CPR and pediatric first aid to be there, not every staff member.
Teachers and directors also complete 16 hours of health and safety training "if necessary" under the Health and Safety Code.
Those required childcare training and screening rules come from CDSS, not the CTC.
Units and experience needed for each level
Permit requirements are built out of semester units, and the permit rules define three core areas of coursework: child/human growth and development; child, family and community; and programs/curriculum.
Under the permit rules, each core course must be at least three semester units or four quarter units, and supervised field experience counts for three semester or four quarter units.
The 12-unit block is the one to understand first.
The Associate Teacher Permit (Option 1) takes 12 semester units of ECE/child development coursework, excluding field work, with at least one 3-unit course in each core area — plus 50 days of experience.
Title 22's fully qualified teacher route asks for the same 12 units spread across the same three core areas, plus six months of work experience, so one well-chosen course block can serve both systems.
Our guide to the 12 ECE units explains how the rule works for California childcare jobs.
The experience definitions differ between the two systems, so count them separately.
For the Associate Teacher Permit, the 50 days must be in an instructional capacity in a child care and development program, at 3 or more hours per day, within the last two years.
Title 22's six months of teacher experience means at least 3 hours per day for a minimum of 50 days within a six-month period, paid or volunteer, under the supervision of a person who would qualify as a teacher or director.
The 6-unit mark is a useful first target, because three separate California requirements sit at it: it is the entire education requirement for the Assistant Permit, the Title 22 starting point for a center teacher, and the requirement for a preschool aide helping a fully qualified teacher supervise up to 18 children — an aide can also be completing at least 2 units each semester until reaching 6.
How to apply to the CTC
Applications go to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing — it issues every permit on the ladder.
The practical work happens before you apply: matching your coursework and experience days to one of the six levels in the permit matrix, because that choice sets everything else.
- Pull your transcripts and map each course to the three core areas, checking unit values — each core course needs at least three semester units or four quarter units.
- Count your experience the way your target level counts it. For the Associate Teacher Permit (Option 1), that means days in an instructional capacity, hours per day, and dates, so you can show 50 days at 3 or more hours per day within the last two years; other levels set their own experience requirements in the leaflet.
- Read the CTC's Child Development Permit leaflet for your target level — it carries the full matrix, the other option routes, and the current application instructions and fees, which our research did not confirm.
- Apply at your level, and keep dated records of your professional growth from your first day holding the permit — renewal comes around every five years.
Treat the CTC's own pages as the source of truth for forms and fees, and check them again before you apply: the matrix itself is mid-revision, as the callout above describes.
One deadline inside the documented rules is worth planning around — the Associate Teacher Permit's 50 days of experience must fall within the last two years, so it pays to apply while your experience days are recent.
Permit renewal
Every Child Development Permit is issued for five years and is renewable for successive five-year periods upon completion of 105 hours of professional growth.
Renewal is therefore a planning problem: 105 hours of professional growth stand between one five-year permit and the next, and the CTC's leaflet and professional growth materials define what counts toward them.
Our research recorded the five-year term and the 105-hour total, not the activity rules behind the hours, so check the CTC's professional growth guidance before signing up for coursework you hope to count.
Keeping dated records as you go is simpler than reconstructing five years of activities when the renewal window opens.
This page is career information, not licensing or legal advice. Child Development Permit rules are set and administered by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, and center licensing rules by the California Department of Social Services Child Care Licensing Program; confirm current requirements with the agency that administers them before you apply or hire.