An early childhood workforce registry is a state database that records an early educator's education, training and credentials and, in states with a career ladder or lattice, assigns a verified level.
The federal CCDF rule asks states to plan for workforce information but does not require individual staff to join — whether you must register is set by your state's licensing rules, and states including Illinois, Ohio and Nevada require registration.
What is a workforce registry?
A workforce registry — the same idea you'll see called an ECE registry, an ECE workforce registry, an early childhood professional registry or a childcare training registry — is a state-level database of the early childhood workforce.
It holds your education, the training you complete, the credentials you earn and, in states like Michigan and Washington, a verified employment record.
States run their own systems under their own brands, from Gateways to Opportunity in Illinois to MERIT in Washington.
The federal floor comes from the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) rules at 45 CFR 98.44, administered by ACF: each state must describe a training and professional development framework that addresses workforce information, among other elements, and workforce 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.
For a job seeker, the registry's practical value is a single official record you don't have to reassemble for every employer or application.
The Council for Professional Recognition — the body that awards the CDA — accepts workforce registry transcripts from all U.S. state and territory workforce registries as part of the CDA credentialing process, and partners with the National Workforce Registry Alliance through a memorandum of understanding.
New to the field?
Our childcare teacher guide covers the training and credentials a registry ends up recording.
Is it mandatory in your state?
The federal answer is no: the CCDF framework asks states to address workforce information, but it does not require individual staff to join a registry.
The binding answer lives in state licensing rules — and a number of states answer yes.
Each rule names its own setting and roles:
- Illinois — all center staff, assistants and the director must be members of the Gateways to Opportunity Registry, and new staff must join within 30 days of hire.
- Michigan — center program staff must have a MiRegistry account, active membership and a verified employment entry within 30 calendar days of employment.
- Ohio — every center employee must create an Ohio Professional Registry profile and an employment record on or before their first day of work.
- 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 (PDIS).
- Maine — all center staff must register with Maine's Professional Development Network, known as Maine Roads to Quality.
- Alabama — by August 1, 2022, the director, teachers, aides/assistant teachers, all service staff and all substitutes in Alabama centers had to be enrolled in the Alabama Pathways Professional Development Registry.
- Arkansas — center directors, site supervisors and direct-care staff must be registered with the Division of Child Care and Early Childhood Education (DCCECE) Professional Development Registry within 30 days of hire.
- Nevada — caregivers must join The Nevada Registry within 120 days of starting work and keep an active membership.
- Missouri — caregivers must obtain a Missouri Professional Development Identification (MOPD ID) number, and all clock-hour training is recorded in the state's professional development system.
- Washington — all staff must have current employment recorded in MERIT, Washington DCYF's online workforce registry, for licensing compliance.
Center rules are not the whole picture.
Illinois day care home license applications must include Gateways Registry membership among their paperwork, so the requirement reaches licensed day care homes there.
Georgia takes the opposite approach: its center licensing rule lets orientation and training records be kept in the staff personnel file and/or Georgia's workforce registry (GaPDS), and it does not by itself require GaPDS membership.
Even where no rule forces membership, skipping the registry can close doors — the sections below show it gating scholarships, quality ratings and pay programs.
Each mandate names its own setting, roles and deadline
What it records
Strip away the brand names and the registries in our research keep three kinds of records.
First, education and training: the Alaska SEED Registry tracks training and education, Missouri records all clock-hour training in its state professional development system, and South Carolina's registry — run by SC Endeavors — issues each member a State Registry ID and a DSS official training transcript, alongside a training calendar.
Second, credentials: your registry transcript is an accepted way to document training for the CDA, because the Council accepts transcripts from every U.S. state and territory workforce registry.
Third, employment: Michigan center program staff need a verified employment entry in MiRegistry, and Washington treats a current employment record in MERIT as part of licensing compliance — which in these states makes your registry profile part of onboarding paperwork, not an optional extra.
Registries can double as the training hub itself.
The Connecticut Office of Early Childhood's Professional Registry houses free online trainings in English and Spanish and serves as the application portal for OEC scholarships and workforce incentives, and IdahoSTARS runs Idaho's professional development system end to end — statewide registry, educational pathway, training approval and scholarships.
For operators, that combination turns the registry into a hiring tool: an applicant's registry transcript shows the training a licensing rule or your own standards require, and Nevada's registry notes that administrators may use members' levels to recruit staff and justify wage increases.
Career lattice levels
The record feeds a number: your career ladder or lattice level.
A level is calculated from what you can document — education, training and, under lattices like Arizona's, experience — and scholarship programs, quality-rating systems and pay programs key off it or off membership itself; the rest of this page documents examples of each.
The scales differ state by state.
Arizona places registry members on a five-level Career Lattice based on training, education and experience, with membership active for one year.
Utah's Career Ladder has 12 levels, from 30 hours of basic training at Level 1 up to a doctorate at Level 12, with Levels 9–12 corresponding to associate, bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees in related fields.
Ohio's Career Pathways Level (CPL) has six levels recorded in the Ohio Professional Registry and can be used as an alternate route to meet licensing or SUTQ education requirements — a revised CPL model took effect July 1, 2026.
Levels are mechanical, which is the point: Nevada's Career Ladder is set by college credits or degrees earned — not years of service — and is reassessed at each annual renewal, and in Alaska a member's education sets their Career Ladder level.
The Wisconsin Registry levels referenced by its REWARD stipend program run from 1 to 17.
What a level is not is a license: Montana's Director Credential is optional and sits above the registry, requiring Practitioner Registry level 4 or higher just to apply.
Keep the documents behind your level current — transcripts and certificates — because the pay and scholarship programs in the next section read the level, not your resume.
How registry levels unlock pay supplements
This is where a registry level turns into money.
In Maine, Illinois, Wisconsin and North Dakota, wage supplement and incentive programs take your registry level or membership as an eligibility input — the examples below are the programs our research documents.
Amounts are what each program published as of our October 2026 read.
- Maine — the Early Childhood Educator Workforce Salary Supplement pays monthly stipends through licensed programs by MRTQ registry level: $240 a month at Tier 1 (Registry Levels 1–4), $360 at Tier 2 (Levels 5–6) and $540 at Tier 3 (Levels 7–8). Registry Level 0 staff are not eligible, and educators must be registered and active in the MRTQ Registry and provide direct care in a licensed facility or family child care program.
- Illinois — Great START pays a wage supplement by check every six months to practitioners with college coursework who stay with the same employer; applicants must work 15+ hours a week, earn no more than $24.00 an hour and $49,920 a year, and be Gateways Registry members.
- Wisconsin — REWARD stipends go to educators at any Wisconsin Registry level from 1 to 17 who have at least one year in the field, earn under $25 an hour and work 20+ hours a week in a licensed or YoungStar group program or a licensed or certified family program; stipends come at most every 12 months.
- North Dakota — the Workforce Registry Incentive pays registry members $250 in Career Pathway categories B–D or $500 in categories E–J, if they work 15+ hours a week and have stayed at the same level for at least 6 months; applications open January 1–31, while funding lasts.
Membership alone can be the gate, even without a level.
Arizona's First Things First college scholarships — which fund degrees and credentials for people working with children birth through age 5 — can be accessed only by Arizona Early Childhood Workforce Registry members.
New York's QUALITYstarsNY scholarship requires an active Aspire Registry member ID, and the Massachusetts ECE Scholarship requires an active EEC PQ Registry number.
In Minnesota, an individual Develop membership is needed for a licensed program to seek a Parent Aware two- to four-star rating, and T.E.A.C.H.
Minnesota recipients must hold a Develop membership.
The tie-in can be softer.
Since September 2024, Texas Rising Star has included a points-based measure recognizing staff who participate in the Texas Early Childhood Professional Development System (TECPDS), and Connecticut's OEC registry is the application portal for its scholarships and workforce incentives.
None of this makes registration a pay raise by itself — but in these states, the registry profile is where the money starts.
Supplement amounts move with funding cycles
List of state registries
Systems rebrand and not every state uses the word "registry," so the table below compiles the registry each state's rules and programs name in our research, together with the Council's October 2026 list of NWRA-approved state registries.
The Council accepts transcripts from all U.S. state and territory workforce registries; for a state you don't see here, ask your state child care licensing agency or the program you're applying to for the current name and sign-up steps.
| State | Registry (as named in the rules and programs we cite) |
|---|---|
| Alabama | Alabama Pathways Professional Development Registry |
| Alaska | Alaska SEED Registry |
| Arizona | Arizona Early Childhood Workforce Registry |
| Arkansas | DCCECE Professional Development Registry |
| Colorado | Colorado Shines Professional Development Information System (PDIS) |
| Connecticut | OEC Early Childhood Professional Registry |
| District of Columbia | OSSE Professional Development Information System (PDIS) |
| Georgia | GaPDS |
| Idaho | IdahoSTARS |
| Illinois | Gateways to Opportunity Registry |
| Iowa | i-PoWeR |
| Maine | Maine Roads to Quality (MRTQ Registry) |
| Massachusetts | EEC PQ Registry |
| Michigan | MiRegistry |
| Minnesota | Develop |
| Missouri | MOPDS (Missouri Professional Development System) |
| Montana | Montana Early Childhood Project (Practitioner Registry) |
| Nevada | The Nevada Registry |
| New Jersey | New Jersey Workforce Registry |
| New York | Aspire Registry |
| North Dakota | ND Early Childhood Workforce Registry |
| Ohio | Ohio Professional Registry (OPR) |
| Oklahoma | Oklahoma PD Registry |
| Pennsylvania | Pennsylvania PD Registry |
| South Carolina | SC Endeavors registry |
| Texas | Texas Early Childhood Professional Development System (TECPDS) |
| Utah | Utah Registry for Professional Development (URPD) |
| Washington | MERIT |
| West Virginia | WV STARS |
| Wisconsin | The Registry |
| Wyoming | Wyoming STARS |
However a state brands it, the record itself is the point: it travels with you between jobs in that state, and in the programs this page cites, your registry membership or level is what the scholarship, quality-rating and pay programs check.
Career and employer information, not licensing or legal advice — registry requirements sit in state licensing rules, so confirm the current rule with your state's child care licensing agency.