PDIS stands for Professional Development Information System — the name Colorado, DC and New Mexico give their early childhood workforce registry systems.
Colorado runs the Colorado Shines PDIS at www.coloradoshinespdis.com, and DC's Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) runs its own PDIS for early childhood staff; New Mexico's ECECD also tracks its workforce through a PDIS our research did not fully confirm.
In Colorado and DC, licensing rules require staff to register — Colorado for named center roles, DC for every paid caregiving employee.
What is the PDIS?
PDIS stands for Professional Development Information System, and the name belongs to separate state systems for the early childhood workforce.
Colorado's is the Colorado Shines PDIS, online at www.coloradoshinespdis.com.
Washington, DC's is run by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE), the agency that also licenses DC child development facilities.
Both are workforce registries: state databases of each early educator's education, completed training and credentials.
The federal Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) rules at 45 CFR 98.44, administered by ACF, require each state to describe a training and professional development framework that addresses workforce information among other elements, and registries are how most states track it.
The federal rule does not require individual staff to join — that decision sits with each state's licensing rules.
The two PDIS systems are not connected.
They are run by separate agencies, so a Colorado Shines PDIS account is not a login for DC's system, and a profile in one says nothing about the other.
If you searched for a PDIS login, the address you need depends on which state's system holds your record — for Colorado, it is www.coloradoshinespdis.com.
New Mexico completes the picture with a caveat.
The state's Early Childhood Education and Care Department (ECECD) operates a Professional Development Information System that tracks the early childhood workforce, but the agency pages we read did not confirm the system's current web address or whether registration is mandatory for every educator.
The state-by-state view of these systems is on our guide to workforce registries.
Who has to register in the PDIS?
The federal answer is no: CCDF does not require individual staff to join a registry.
The binding answer lives in each jurisdiction's licensing rules — and in both Colorado and DC, those rules require registration.
- Colorado — directors, assistant directors, small-center directors, early childhood teachers and infant program staff in Colorado centers must register in the Colorado Shines Professional Development Information System (8 CCR 1402-1 §2.208(D)), the child care facility licensing rule the Colorado Department of Early Childhood (CDEC) administers.
- Washington, DC — DC requires each paid caregiving employee to register with and participate in OSSE's professional development information system. OSSE is the same agency that licenses DC child development facilities.
Scope matters on both.
The Colorado rule names center roles, so it does not by itself cover family child care homes — licensed Colorado homes enrolling children 5 or younger face a separate requirement to participate in Colorado Shines, the state's quality rating and improvement system (8 CCR 1402-1 §2.305(A)(2)).
In DC, the requirement is written for paid caregiving employees, the rule's own term.
New Mexico is the open question.
ECECD operates a PDIS that tracks the early childhood workforce, but the pages we read did not confirm whether registration is mandatory for every educator.
If you work in New Mexico, ask ECECD's Child Care Services Bureau what applies to your role.
Registry mandates are state rules — they change
How to create a PDIS profile
Both systems handle sign-up on their own websites, and the screens differ between them.
Our research verified the systems' names, web addresses and registration rules, not the click-by-click flow — the site's own instructions control.
The general pattern for creating a registry profile looks like this:
Start from the right site
Colorado's system is at www.coloradoshinespdis.com. For DC, start from OSSE's website at osse.dc.gov, which publishes its PDIS pages. In New Mexico, start from ECECD.Create your account
This account is the PDIS login people search for. Use the same name your transcripts and certificates carry, so your documents match your record.Build out your record
Add your education, completed training and work history. Have transcripts, certificates and past job details at hand before you start.Keep it current
Enter training as you finish it and update your employment when you change jobs. A stale record defeats the purpose of the registry.
If you are joining a Colorado center in one of the roles the rule covers, or a DC facility as a paid caregiving employee, expect registration to be part of onboarding rather than an optional extra — Colorado's rule requires prospective and current staff in the named roles to register, and DC requires each paid caregiving employee to register and participate.
PDIS career levels and what they unlock
In Colorado, the PDIS is more than a training log — it issues the state's early childhood professional credential at Levels I, II and III, and those levels are a recognized path to Colorado's teacher and director qualifications (8 CCR 1402-1 §2.216, §2.214).
For teachers: an early childhood teacher, Colorado's term for the lead teacher of a single group, must be at least 18 and meet one of nine qualification options.
The options include a CDA, a PDIS credential at Level II or higher, an ECE associate degree, or 21 months (3,185 hours) of verified experience with four or more unrelated children under 8 combined with two ECE courses or a PDIS Level I credential.
For directors: a large center director needs a current Department-issued director qualifications letter or a current PDIS early childhood professional credential at Level III or higher before working as director.
Small center directors can qualify with a CDA, a PDIS credential at Level II or higher, a CDE teaching license with an early childhood or elementary endorsement, or experience-plus-coursework routes.
PDIS registration also counts in Colorado Shines, the state's quality rating and improvement system for licensed programs serving children birth to five; every licensed program serving ages 0–5 enters at Level 1.
CDEC lists Level 2 as requiring a quality improvement plan, a Program Self-Assessment, staff registered in PDIS and linked to the program, and the required eLearning hours, with Level 3 adding high levels of staff qualifications.
Those ratings are in transition: Colorado is moving from its QRIS to a refreshed Quality Improvement System over 19 months, May 17, 2026 – January 16, 2028, and since September 20, 2026 programs can move from Level 2 to a 3-year Provisional Level 3 rating through a streamlined interim process.
DC is the honest gap: our research documents its registration requirement but not a published PDIS level structure, so ask OSSE how DC treats career levels in its system.
Recording training hours in the PDIS
A registry profile is only worth what it holds, so completed training belongs in it.
Colorado's PDIS has hosted eLearning courses directly — as part of the Colorado Shines refresh, courses related to the environmental rating scales are no longer available, so check a course's current status before you count on it.
New Mexico's licensing rules tie training hours to its trainer registry: New Mexico training hours must come from trainers on the New Mexico trainer registry, and one college credit hour counts as at least 15 clock hours.
The annual minimums behind those hours are part of the licensing rules.
Colorado requires all center staff who work with children to complete at least 15 clock hours of ongoing professional development each year, with at least 3 hours in social-emotional development, and DC sets annual professional development minimums of at least 21 hours for child development center staff.
What our research did not capture is how either registry records a specific course toward those minimums — before you assume a course will count toward your hours, ask the Colorado Department of Early Childhood or OSSE.
Using your registry ID when job hunting
Treat your registry ID like a transcript number.
It points to your record in the registry — the database of your education, training and credentials — that a director can pull up, so put the ID on your resume and applications where an employer can find it.
In Colorado and DC the record carries extra weight, because Colorado's rule requires registration for its named center roles and DC requires every paid caregiving employee to register and participate — a current profile answers a director's credential questions before they are asked.
If you change programs, ask whether your profile needs to be linked to the new one.
In Colorado, that link is not paperwork for its own sake: CDEC lists staff registered in PDIS and linked to the program among the Colorado Shines Level 2 requirements, so an unlinked profile can leave that requirement unmet.
Because Colorado Shines is moving to its refreshed Quality Improvement System through January 2028, confirm the current criteria with CDEC.
The credential side matters in hiring too.
Colorado counts a PDIS Level I credential (with verified experience) or a credential at Level II or higher among its teacher qualification options, so a current PDIS credential can be the document that qualifies you for a lead role.
For the CDA, the Council for Professional Recognition accepts transcripts from every U.S. state and territory workforce registry as documentation — but if you will renew a CDA, keep a membership in an early childhood professional organization as well, because registry membership does not satisfy the CDA renewal membership requirement.
When you browse childcare teacher jobs, a current PDIS profile in Colorado or DC gives you a registry record of your training and credentials to point to on an application — one less thing to reassemble for every application.
Career and employer information, not licensing or legal advice — registry mandates sit in state licensing rules, so confirm the current requirement with the agency that runs your system: the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, DC's Office of the State Superintendent of Education, or New Mexico's Early Childhood Education and Care Department.