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

Maryland licenses child care centers through the Office of Child Care, the Division of Early Childhood in the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE).

The center rules sit in COMAR 13A.16, while family child care homes are registered under COMAR 13A.15.

MSDE's Licensing Branch runs 13 regional licensing offices that license centers and register family child care homes.

The amendment dates of the COMAR sections were not captured in our research, so this page says current COMAR; where a summary and the current regulation text disagree, the regulation governs.

Maryland's center rule calls the lead classroom role the child care teacher.

For a preschool group, a child care teacher must be at least 19 years old, hold a high school diploma or GED or college credit, and have completed 90 clock hours (6 semester hours) of approved pre-service training or hold the CDA credential.

The teacher also needs 1 year of supervised experience with preschoolers, or 1 year of college in its place.

An associate degree or higher with approved early childhood education courses satisfies the pre-service training requirement directly.

Individual centers may ask for more than the licensing minimum, so read each job posting closely.

Maryland's center rules name two support roles and they are not interchangeable.

A child care aide must be at least 16, which is the minimum age for any center staff member, and works under direct supervision; an aide hired since 2009 without 90 hours of early childhood education training must complete an MSDE orientation within 6 months.

The rules also define an assistant child care teacher title for school age centers: at least 18, a high school diploma or GED, 9 hours of communication training, and 800 hours of experience — or 600 hours plus 15 clock hours of coursework, or 400 hours plus 3 semester hours.

The parallel school age center teacher rules sit in a separate COMAR section our research did not extract, so confirm school age specifics with the Office of Child Care.

The pre-service package starts with the 90 clock hours, or 6 semester hours, of Maryland-approved training; the CDA credential replaces it, and so does an associate degree or higher with approved early childhood education courses.

Two smaller training pieces sit alongside: 9 hours on communicating with staff, parents and the public, and 3 hours on the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Basic health and safety training follows within 90 days of hire.

New staff must also be informed in writing, on or before assignment, about emergency procedures, the discipline policy, handwashing and child abuse reporting, among other topics.

Once employed, a Maryland child care teacher completes at least 12 clock hours of approved continued training per full year, and at least 6 of those hours must fall in the Core of Knowledge.

The hours are tracked on a professional development plan, and health and safety training repeats each year on top of them.

Child care aides are held to a lighter schedule: 6 clock hours of continued training per full year of employment.

The center teacher rules we read set two recurring health and safety duties: basic health and safety training within 90 days of hire, then health and safety training again every year.

Maryland also requires a 6-hour Medication Administration Training (MAT), taught by an approved RN, as pre-service training for anyone seeking a child care center license or a family child care registration.

Our reading of those rules did not surface a separate CPR or first-aid certificate requirement for center teachers; the CPR and first-aid duty the research confirmed is a family child care rule, where a registration applicant must hold current first aid and CPR.

Ask the Office of Child Care which certificates your role needs before your first shift.

Maryland requires an application for a federal and Maryland State criminal background check for the center applicant, the director, every employee including substitutes and volunteers, and adults living on the premises, along with child and adult abuse record reviews.

Anyone who lived in another state in the past 5 years also needs that state's criminal background check.

Separately, the employment rules bar centers from employing anyone with a conviction, a probation before judgment disposition, a not criminally responsible disposition or a pending charge for crimes involving a child, sex offenses, violent felonies, child or adult abuse and other listed crimes; other offenses are assessed case by case by the Office.

Ask the hiring director what to file and when.

A teacher who leads an infant or toddler group carries one more training piece on top of the preschool package: 3 semester hours of approved training related to the care of infants and toddlers, or the equivalent; on the rule's alternate route it is 6 hours.

Breastfeeding-support training is required as well.

These hours add to the base qualifications rather than replacing them, and the Office of Child Care can confirm which courses currently count.

The Maryland Child Care Credential is a voluntary program for child care staff and administrators.

Child care staff advance through seven credential levels and administrators through four, and a credential lasts 12 months before renewing with continued training and professional activities.

It sits alongside the CDA, which Maryland also accepts in place of the 90 clock hours of pre-service training.