What Are the Requirements to Be a Preschool Teacher?

There is no national preschool teacher license.

The requirements for a given job come from different rulebooks, sometimes stacked on top of each other: the state child care licensing agency's staff qualification rules for center classrooms, state educator licensing for public-school classrooms, and the Office of Head Start's federal standards for Head Start classrooms.

BLS describes the typical requirement for preschool teachers as at least an associate's degree — and, the phrase doing the real work, requirements vary by setting and state.

The same job title can carry a different bar at a private center, a school-district pre-K classroom and a Head Start program on the same street.

The sections below walk each setting in turn.

For the role itself — what a preschool teacher does day to day, and the age groups and settings the job covers — the preschool teacher career guide covers it separately.

In a privately owned center or preschool, the rulebook is your state's child care licensing rules: the state child care licensing agency writes what a teacher and an assistant must have — education, training, background check — and centers hire against those minimums.

Each state writes its own staff qualification rules, so the bar for a preschool classroom teacher moves as you cross state lines.

BLS: preschool teachers typically need at least an associate's degree, and requirements vary by setting and state.

On top of the state minimum, BLS notes that some states and employers require childcare workers to hold a nationally recognized credential, most often the CDA, which must be renewed every 3 years — a credential awarded by the Council for Professional Recognition, not a degree and not the center's operating license.

If you are weighing the CDA itself, our CDA credential page covers eligibility, steps and renewal.

An individual employer can also set its own bar above the licensing minimum, and that bar shows up in the posting rather than the statute — so read a center's job posting as closely as your state's rule.

When the classroom sits inside a public school, a different part of state government sets the bar.

BLS: in public schools, preschool teachers generally need at least a bachelor's degree in early childhood education or a related field, and must be licensed to teach early childhood education — a license that covers preschool through third grade — usually by passing an exam.

That license comes from state educator licensing, not from the child care licensing agency that regulates centers.

The two are different systems: public-school certification is not a center's staff qualification rule, and a center's qualification line is not the public-school license.

State-funded pre-K programs can set their own teacher requirements, and those rules can differ from both center licensing and public-school licensure.

For a specific pre-K classroom, ask the agency that runs the program.

Head Start preschool classrooms follow their own federal rulebook: the Head Start Program Performance Standards, administered by the Office of Head Start, whose staff qualification rules sit in 45 CFR 1302.91.

As of October 2026, those standards require all Head Start preschool center-based teachers to hold at least an associate or bachelor's degree in child development or early childhood education — or equivalent coursework — and at least 50% of Head Start preschool teachers nationwide must hold a bachelor's.

Assistant teachers have their own line: at minimum, a CDA — or a state certificate that meets or exceeds it — enrollment in an associate or bachelor's program, or enrollment in a CDA program to be completed within two years of hire.

These are Head Start rules; a private center is not covered by them.

And they are in motion: on August 7, 2026, ACF proposed rescinding and replacing the Head Start Program Performance Standards, with comments closing October 6, 2026.

The proposal would keep the statutory qualifications — which include preschool teachers and assistant teachers — and neither it nor the May 2026 proposal, which targeted Head Start's wage and benefit rules, was final as of October 5, 2026.

Montessori credentials are private credentials, not state licenses.

AMS issues its full Montessori credential only to graduates of AMS-affiliated teacher education programs who hold a bachelor's degree in any field or the equivalent; an AMS Associate credential, at the Infant & Toddler and Early Childhood levels, is available without a bachelor's.

AMS says earning its credential typically takes 1-2 years, with a yearlong practicum that can be done at the candidate's current Montessori school.

AMI, a separate training body, runs diploma courses by age level — Assistants to Infancy (0-3), Primary (3-6), Elementary (6-12) — plus a separate Montessori Classroom Assistant certificate course through AMI training centres worldwide.

AMI's course length, cost and admission prerequisites were not verified in our research and vary by training centre, so check with the course itself.

A Montessori credential does not replace your state's rules: at a licensed Montessori center, the state's teacher qualification rules still apply alongside whatever the school asks for.

Faith-based preschools sit on a different line: license-exempt status is written state by state.

Alabama, for example, allows church-ministry preschools and religious nonprofit school programs to be license-exempt — but they must notify the state's DHR at least 30 days before operating, pass annual fire and health inspections, submit staff criminal history, carry liability insurance and post that they are not licensed by DHR.

That is one state's example, and exemption conditions vary by state.

Where a program is license-exempt, the state's center licensing rules — including staff qualifications — are what it is exempt from, and the employer's own hiring standards fill the gap; conditions the state attaches to exempt programs, like Alabama's notice and staff criminal history requirements, still apply.

If you are considering a faith-based preschool job, ask the director whether the program is licensed or exempt and what it requires of teachers, and confirm a program's status with your state child care licensing agency.

Beyond the degree and credential rules, two requirement layers round out the picture: training and checks.

BLS counts a minimum training requirement, a background check and a complete immunization record among what childcare staff often must meet to qualify for licensure — and notes that some states require CPR and first aid certification.

Training hours are a state decision: your state child care licensing agency sets the pre-service and annual training totals a center teacher must complete, and the totals differ across state lines.

The topic list, the deadlines and the hour totals are on our required childcare training page.

Background checks have a federal floor.

Under federal CCDF rules (45 CFR 98.43), every child care staff member of a licensed, regulated or registered provider — and any subsidy-eligible provider — must have a comprehensive background check: an FBI fingerprint check, a National Sex Offender Registry search, and, for the current state and every state lived in during the past 5 years, a state criminal repository check, a state sex offender registry check and a state child abuse and neglect registry check.

Timing matters as much as the list.

Checks must be requested before you become a staff member and repeated at least once every 5 years.

A new hire may start work once either the FBI fingerprint check or the in-state fingerprint check returns a qualifying result, but must be supervised at all times by a fully checked staff member until every component is complete.

For a center-based preschool teaching job, your state child care licensing agency writes the rulebook: its staff qualification rules set the education, training and check requirements for teachers and assistants, and they change as rules are revised.

Our daycare teacher requirements by state guide walks the state rules for center teaching staff, and your state agency's own rules carry the current figures.

Setting changes the bar more than anything else on this page: a private center asks what your state's licensing rule asks, a public-school classroom generally asks for a bachelor's degree plus a state early childhood license, and a Head Start program asks for the federal degree minimums.

Confirm which of the three a posting is hiring against before you apply.

The BLS projects preschool teacher employment to grow 4% from 2025 to 2035.

Once you know the bar in your state and your setting, preschool teacher jobs show the requirements each center is hiring against in the posting itself.

This page is career information, not licensing or legal advice. Center staff qualifications are set by each state's child care licensing agency, public-school licensure by state educator licensing, and Head Start standards by the Office of Head Start; confirm the current requirements with the agency that administers them before you apply or hire.