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

Virginia licenses child day programs through the Virginia Department of Education; licensing moved from the Virginia Department of Social Services to VDOE in 2021.

The standards a licensed center and the staff it hires follow sit in the Virginia Administrative Code at 8VAC20-780, the Standards for Licensed Child Day Centers.

VDOE's Division of Early Childhood Care and Education administers the program.

When a requirement on this page and the current rule text disagree, the rule text governs — confirm specifics with VDOE before you rely on them.

Virginia's center rule calls its lead-teacher role the program leader — the definitions also call the role child care supervisor or teacher.

A program leader must be at least 18 years old, have fulfilled a high school program completion or the equivalent, and meet one of the rule's education and experience options.

The options the rule lists include a bachelor's degree or an endorsement in a child-related field such as elementary education, nursing or recreation, with no experience requirement attached.

Another route is three months of programmatic experience plus a one-year early childhood certificate of 30 or more semester hours, a child development credential such as the CDA, or a Montessori teaching diploma.

A third route is six months of supervised programmatic experience plus 24 hours of child care training, for staff hired or promoted after June 1, 2008.

Each center group must also have a staff member qualified as a program leader or director regularly present.

Virginia's center rule calls the assistant role the aide — also the assistant teacher or child care assistant — and defines it as the person who helps the program leader supervise children.

Aides must be at least 16 years old, and the rule sets no education minimum for the role, unlike the high school and options list it sets for program leaders.

The staffing cap matters for job seekers too: one program leader may supervise no more than two aides, so centers staff rooms with a qualified program leader or director present and aides around them.

Two training clocks start when a Virginia center hires you.

The center's own orientation — including safe sleep, shaken baby syndrome and abusive head trauma, allergies, the medication policy and mandated reporting — must be complete before you work alone with children and no later than seven days after you assume job responsibilities.

The Virginia Department of Education-sponsored orientation course is due within 90 calendar days of employment.

The two are separate from each other, and both sit on top of the annual hours below.

Virginia center staff must complete at least 16 hours of training annually, appropriate to the age of the children in care, in addition to orientation.

One exception the rule names is short-term programs: staff in those programs who work with groups are required to obtain a minimum of 10 hours of staff training per year.

One specialized training runs on its own cycle — at centers that administer prescription medication, the staff who administer it must be trained through a course approved by the Board of Nursing and retrained at three-year intervals.

First aid and CPR training is due within 30 days of your first day at a Virginia center, and the rule ties the training to the age of the children in care.

On medical requirements beyond training, our research pass did not capture Virginia's TB screening or staff health examination rules from the center standards, so this page does not state what health documentation a center will ask for — ask VDOE or the center's director what the current rule requires before your first shift.

Virginia requires a background check for all child day program employees and volunteers before employment and every five years thereafter, under Code of Virginia § 22.1-289.035.

The check is multi-part: fingerprinting against the state's CCRE and the FBI, a search of the central registry of child abuse and neglect, and criminal history, sex offender registry and child abuse and neglect registry checks in any state the person lived in during the preceding five years.

One doorway exists for new hires: an applicant may start before every component returns when they have a qualifying fingerprint-based result and are supervised at all times by a person who received a qualifying result within the past five years.

Ask the center's director what to submit and when.