How to start a preschool: licensing, staffing and curriculum choices

Start here, because the answer shapes every decision after it: child care licensing is administered state by state, and each state's rulebook defines its own categories — the two examples below show how differently states can treat a preschool.

Kansas licenses preschools as their own category, separate from child care centers.

Under its rule a licensed preschool conducts sessions of no more than three hours, enrolls any child in no more than one session per day, serves children 30 months and older who are not yet kindergarten-eligible, and serves no meals — and the term expressly includes educational preschools and Montessori schools (K.A.R. 28-4-420).

Texas takes a different approach for school-run programs: it exempts from child care licensing a kindergarten or preschool educational program operated as part of a public school, or of a private school accredited by the Texas Education Agency and offering grades through six, as long as it provides no before- or after-school custodial care (Tex.

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Code 42.041(b)(9)).

The conditions carry the weight — the exemption is defined by the school affiliation and the no-wraparound-care design, which is why your program design comes before the licensing conversation, not after it.

Whichever side of the line your design lands on, license-exempt does not automatically mean unregulated.

Federal CCDF rules require license-exempt providers who are paid with subsidy to meet federal health, safety and background-check requirements; the main exception, which applies to the health and safety rules, covers relatives specified in 45 CFR 98.42(c).

Confirm the category before you commit: neither example transfers to any other state, and the levers that decide a category are visible in the Kansas definition — session length, sessions per child per day, ages and meals.

Ask your state child care licensing agency which category your program design falls under before you sign a lease or enroll a single family.

If your model is full-day care instead, the licensing route, budget and step order in our guide to how to start a daycare cover the center and home routes.

The program design from the licensing question is a facility brief in disguise.

A category defined by three-hour sessions and no meals — Kansas's preschool definition again — implies a very different building than full-day care with a kitchen and napping space, and the age band you choose shapes the classrooms you lay out.

Facility numbers are scarce.

Our research did not verify a per-square-foot build-out figure for child care centers from any primary source, so contractor bids against your actual floor plan are the only build-out number worth budgeting.

Zoning is the other gate, and it is local: confirm with your city or county zoning office that a preschool or school use is permitted at the address before you commit, and get the answer in writing.

If the space you are considering sits in a religious organization's building, one federal distinction matters to you as a private operator.

The Justice Department's ADA guidance on child care centers states that centers actually run by religious entities — churches, mosques, synagogues — are not covered by Title III, while a private child care program that leases space from a religious organization generally is covered.

Confirm before you sign anything: the facility requirements your license will be measured against are set by your state child care licensing agency, and permitted use is set by your local zoning authority.

Walk both in writing — the agency's requirements and the zoning office's permitted-use answer — before a lease or a purchase commits you to a building.

Your state's rulebook decides what each staff title must hold, and two state examples show how differently those rules can be built.

California's licensing rule counts a fully qualified center teacher at 12 postsecondary semester (or equivalent quarter) units in early childhood education or child development, completed with passing grades at an accredited or approved college or university, plus six months of experience — the rule counts the units, not a named certificate or degree (22 CCR 101216.1(c)).

Montana's current rule takes the registry route instead: it sets no fixed degree, college-credit or CDA minimum for lead teachers or directors.

Each must show a combination of education, training, other licensing or experience approved through the state's Practitioner Registry or by DPHHS (ARM 37.96.902(4)(f), 37.96.904(3)(g)).

The lesson for your staffing plan is to source the qualification rule before you write a job description: the routes these two rules take — countable college units on one side, a registry combination on the other — are not interchangeable across state lines, and neither example above transfers.

Ask your state child care licensing agency what it requires for the lead teacher title and for the director role, then verify those exact credentials when you hire rather than trusting a résumé's wording.

If your program lands on the license-exempt side but serves subsidized families, remember that the federal health, safety and background-check floor in the licensing section still reaches your staff.

Confirm before anyone is scheduled: qualification minimums are set by your state child care licensing agency.

Ask the agency what background-check components and pre-service training it requires, confirm the current rules before you schedule anyone to work with children, and build the checks into every start date.

Build the budget from labor out, because labor is the line that dominates.

A September 2021 U.S. Treasury report, citing a Center for American Progress cost analysis, put wages at no less than 50-60 percent of child care expenses on U.S. averages, with labor's share larger for infant care — so the staffing plan from the section above is the budget's first draft.

The same report is blunt about margins: most for-profit child care facilities, it said, operate on razor-thin profit margins usually below 1 percent.

That is not a reason to skip the venture, but it is a reason to treat any projection that assumes full enrollment from day one as fiction.

Two cost lines have no verified national figure.

Licensing application fees and timelines are set state by state — our research did not confirm a national figure for either — so pull the current fee schedule from your state child care licensing agency before you budget.

Build-out is the same story: with no verified per-square-foot figure for child care centers, bids against your actual floor plan beat any national estimate.

Insurance is a third line your state sets.

Texas, for example, requires every licensed or registered child care operation to carry liability insurance of $100,000 per occurrence covering injury to children on the premises or in its care, with proof filed with the commission annually (Tex.

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Code 42.049) — one state's floor, printed here as an example of what to look up, not your number.

Price your policy with a licensed commercial insurance agent against your own state's minimum.

The franchise route prices differently from an independent school: The Learning Experience's franchise page lists a $60,000 franchise fee, a $650k-$800k total investment, $250,000 in liquid capital, a $400,000 net worth requirement and a 7% royalty on gross revenue (accessed October 2026).

Independent operators trade that capital profile for building their own brand — and for carrying every line above directly.

Sequence the work so each step feeds the next.

First, write the program design on one page: the ages you will serve, session length, one session or more per child per day, meals or none, the calendar, and the curriculum approach if you are building on a named one — NAEYC's accreditation system lists Montessori, Reggio Emilia and Waldorf programs among the program types eligible to seek its accreditation, which is open to programs licensed or registered by their regulatory body, so it sits alongside licensing rather than replacing it.

Those design choices are exactly the levers the state definitions in the first section key on.

Second, take that page to your state child care licensing agency and ask two questions: which category your design falls under, and what the application requires.

The answers set your document list, your fee line and your timeline — and with no verified national timeline to plan against, the agency's answer is the only one that counts.

Third, run the site checks in parallel rather than after the paperwork: zoning permitted use with your city or county, and the building against the agency's facility requirements.

Fourth, budget from the wages-first math in the costs section.

Fifth, hire the lead teacher early — the qualification rule your state sets decides who can hold the title, and that hire anchors the rest of the roster.

When the design, the category and the budget are real, post the roles.

A listing that names the age band, the session schedule and the qualification your state requires filters out mismatches before they reach your inbox — and it pays to see what candidates see on the preschool teacher jobs board while you write it.

This page is employer information, not licensing or legal advice. Licensing categories, exemptions, facility requirements, staff qualifications, fees and insurance minimums are set and enforced by your state child care licensing agency — confirm the current rules there before you apply, hire or open.