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

The Louisiana Department of Education (LDE) licenses early learning centers under Bulletin 137, the Louisiana Early Learning Center Licensing Regulations (LAC 28:CLXI), and a center must hold its license before it begins operating.

The same bulletin defines the workplace: an early learning center is any place providing care, supervision and guidance to seven or more children not related to the caregiver, on a regular basis for at least 12.5 hours in a continuous seven-day week.

The staff rules in that bulletin are where a daycare teacher's requirements come from.

One naming trap: the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services is not the licensing agency — in the center rules our research read, DCFS appears as the provider of the online Mandated Reporter Training that new staff complete.

Louisiana's center rules set an age floor before any credential question: staff age 18 or older may be included in the child-to-staff ratio and may work without the direct supervision of another adult staff member.

The credential rule lives in a different bulletin — Bulletin 140's academic-approval standards: in full-day Type III early learning centers, all lead teachers must hold an Early Childhood Ancillary Certificate or another BESE teaching certificate, or be in training toward the ECAC and obtain it within 24 months of the start date as lead teacher.

Type III is Louisiana's license type for centers that directly or indirectly receive state or federal funds from any source other than the federal food and nutrition programs, so the ECAC requirement tracks the center's license type and funding — which rule reaches a specific classroom is a question for LDE and the hiring director.

The staff rules our research read set their baseline by age rather than by classroom title, so an assistant teacher meets the same floor as any other staff member: age 18 to count in ratio and work unsupervised, or 16 to 17 with the center able to count them in ratio only under the direct supervision of an adult staff member.

The pre-service modules, the 12 annual continuing-education hours, CPR and pediatric first aid, and the background check are all written for staff generally, not for lead teachers alone.

The one title-specific credential in our research is the ECAC rule for lead teachers in full-day Type III centers; we did not find a separate assistant-teacher certificate in the sections read, so ask LDE what applies to a specific posting.

Louisiana runs new staff through two training clocks.

Within seven calendar days — and before being alone with children — each staff member completes center-specific orientation plus LDE Key Training Module 1 and the DCFS online Mandated Reporter Training.

Key Orientation Training Modules 2 and 3, which cover child development, guidance, learning activities, health and safety, and early learning standards, are due within 30 calendar days.

Training does not stop after onboarding.

Staff who are left alone with children or who supervise them must obtain a minimum of 12 clock hours of continuing education per center anniversary year, and the hours must come from LDE-approved trainers.

CPR and first aid in Louisiana are per-person requirements, not one card per site: all staff members on the premises of a center and accessible to children must hold current certification in infant and child CPR, adult CPR and pediatric first aid through training approved by the department.

The timeline matters at hire: each staff member must hold current pediatric first aid and CPR certification within 90 calendar days of the date of hire and before assuming sole responsibility for any children.

On health checks, our research captured Louisiana's CPR and first aid rules but not a state rule on pre-employment physicals or immunizations for center staff — ask LDE what health documentation a center must keep.

Louisiana's child care criminal background check (CCCBC) has several components: fingerprint-based searches of state and federal (FBI) criminal history records, the state central registry, and the Louisiana and national sex offender registries.

It also reaches beyond Louisiana, covering criminal history, sex offender and child abuse and neglect registries in each state where the person resided in the past five years, in line with the federal CCDF background-check rule (45 CFR 98.43).

LDE, not the hiring center, makes the call: the department determines that a person is either eligible or ineligible for child care purposes, and the center learns only the eligibility result.

Yes, with a supervision condition.

Staff aged 16 to 17 may be included in the child-to-staff ratio only if they work under the direct supervision of an adult staff member.

At 18 the condition falls away: staff age 18 or older may count in ratio and work without another adult's direct supervision.

The training and safety rules on this page are written for staff members, and a 16- or 17-year-old who counts in the ratio is counted on the staff side of it.

Louisiana Pathways is the state's early childhood practitioner registry, run by LDE or its contractor, and it tracks the training, education and experience of directors, teachers and assistants.

Its career levels give the state's classroom titles a ladder: Teacher I requires a CDA credential or an approved early childhood diploma plus one year of experience; Assistant Teacher I requires 90 clock hours in the CDA subject areas plus one year of experience, and Assistant Teacher II requires 120 hours.

Levels run up to Teacher IV and a Master Teacher, with Director I through IV for administrators.

Those Pathways classifications are what Louisiana uses for School Readiness Tax Credit eligibility, and the credit requires working at the same facility at least six months of the year while averaging 30 or more hours a week.

Head Start classrooms answer to a federal rulebook that sits alongside Louisiana licensing.

Under the Head Start Program Performance Standards that the Office of Head Start administers (45 CFR 1302.91), all Head Start preschool center-based teachers must have at least an associate or bachelor's degree in child development or early childhood education, equivalent coursework, or otherwise qualify under the Head Start Act's degree provisions, and Early Head Start teachers of infants and toddlers need at minimum a CDA or comparable credential plus training or coursework focused on infant and toddler development.

Federal law also requires each Head Start teacher to attend at least 15 clock hours of professional development per year.

Because a Type III center is one that directly or indirectly receives state or federal funds from any source other than the federal food and nutrition programs, a licensed Louisiana center operating federally funded Head Start classrooms is in the Type III group — where the ECAC rule reaches lead teachers in full-day classrooms.

Read each posting closely and ask the grantee: a Head Start lead teacher in Louisiana may need to satisfy both the federal qualification and Bulletin 140's ECAC rule.