What Are the Requirements to Be a Daycare Teacher in Alabama?

The Alabama Department of Human Resources (DHR) Child Care Services Division licenses child care centers.

The rules a center and its staff follow sit in Ala.

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Code chapter 660-5-26; family and group day care homes are licensed under a separate chapter, 660-5-27.

Where this page summarizes a requirement, the chapter governs, and DHR's Child Care Services Division publishes the current text.

Alabama's center rule names the lead classroom role the child care worker/teacher.

Each one must be at least 18 years old and hold a high school diploma or a general education diploma (GED), and must complete 12 hours of child care training within 30 days of hire.

The rule does not require a CDA credential or college credits.

Substitutes who have primary responsibility for a group of children must meet the same age and education standard.

The rule's assistant role is the aide/assistant teacher.

Aides must be at least 16 years old and have at least an 8th-grade education, and they work under the direct supervision of a qualified teacher.

Aides do not count toward the staff-child ratio.

Aides still complete the all-staff health and safety pre-service hours described below.

New child care workers/teachers complete 12 hours of child care training within 30 days after employment.

That training must include at least 1 hour each in six areas: child development; health, safety and universal precautions; quality child care and licensing; the child care professional and the family; language development; and positive discipline and guidance.

Separately, all center staff — directors, teachers, aides/assistant teachers, service staff and substitutes — need at least 1 hour of pre-service training from an outside source in each of 11 health and safety topics.

Those topics include SIDS and safe sleep, medication administration, shaken baby syndrome and abusive head trauma, child abuse reporting, and first aid and CPR.

Child care workers/teachers must complete at least 12 clock hours of training each year.

CPR and first aid training do not count toward the 12 annual hours.

All center staff also repeat at least 1 hour in each of the 11 health and safety topics every year.

Our research did not confirm whether those topic hours count toward the 12, so confirm with DHR's Child Care Services Division.

The center keeps current pediatric CPR and first aid on file for at least one staff person present at the center during all hours of operation, and a separate staffing rule calls for at least two staff with CPR and first aid present during operating hours.

Every staff person also needs a medical statement dated within six months before employment showing a TB skin test or a chest X-ray.

That statement is renewed at least every four years.

Alabama's center rule requires a layered background check for child care staff: a National FBI criminal history check with fingerprints, an NCIC and National Sex Offender Registry check, an in-state fingerprint criminal check, an in-state sex offender registry check, and interstate criminal and sex offender checks for anyone who has lived in another state in the past five years.

Staff also need a State Central Registry child abuse and neglect clearance.

The background check and the registry clearance are both renewed every five years.

Ask the hiring center's director which forms to complete and when.

Yes.

By August 1, 2022, the center rule required the director, teachers, aides/assistant teachers, all service staff and all substitutes to be enrolled in the Alabama Pathways Professional Development Registry.

The enrollment mandate is Alabama's own: federal CCDF rules only require each state to address workforce information in its training and professional development framework, and the federal rule does not require individual staff to join a registry.

DHR has posted proposed new Child Care Licensing and Performance Standards: a centers draft dated 8-26-21 and a homes draft posted in 2026.

Those documents are proposals, not adopted rules, and no requirement on this page is drawn from them.

The requirements described here come from the adopted Ala.

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Code chapter 660-5-26 (centers), and our research did not confirm whether the proposed center standards were ever adopted.

Because revisions can change training hours or qualifications, confirm the current requirements with DHR's Child Care Services Division before you apply or hire.