Onboarding new childcare staff: a first-90-days checklist

The onboarding work that decides how a new teacher's first day goes happens between the signed offer and the start date.

Open the new hire's personnel file and start it with the offer letter, identity and qualification records, payroll forms, and the signed handbook acknowledgment.

Initiate the background check the same week — results are the long pole.

The ACF baseline Caring for Our Children Basics (July 2025) says programs should complete background screenings within 45 days and re-screen staff at least every 5 years, which makes the week the offer is signed the right week to start.

The federal rule that decides when the hire can first be in a classroom is the CCDF background-check rule administered by ACF (45 CFR 98.43).

It lets a staff member begin work after a qualifying result on either the FBI fingerprint check or the in-state fingerprint check — but until every component of the check has cleared, they must be supervised at all times by someone who holds a qualifying background check of their own.

This applies to CCDF-covered providers — licensed, regulated, registered and subsidy-receiving programs — and states can be stricter: some bar any work before full clearance.

For which checks run and in what order, see the childcare background-check process for employers; for the supervision question specifically, see can a new hire work before the background check clears.

Calendar the pre-service deadline before day one, too.

Under the CCDF rules (45 CFR 98.44), states must require pre-service or orientation health-and-safety training completed within three months, plus ongoing annual professional development, for caregivers, teachers and directors in subsidy-receiving programs.

Register the new hire for your state's course now and put the completion date on your calendar, so the window doesn't get lost in the first busy weeks of a new classroom.

Confirm the state rules before day one: which checks your state requires, whether a provisional start is allowed at all, how long results take, and which pre-service course and deadline apply to your program.

The agency that decides is your state child care licensing agency — its current rule, not the federal floor, is what your center staffs to.

This checklist assumes the hire exists.

If you're still choosing the teacher this plan is for, hiring for your childcare center covers the stages before the offer — sourcing, screening and interviews.

Plan the first week in someone else's room, not their own.

Shadowing an experienced teacher through full days — arrival, diapering or toileting, meals, nap, clean-up transitions, and pickup conversations with families — shows the routines that orientation can only describe.

Give the shadow specifics to watch for: how the lead positions themselves during free play, how the room documents an incident, what the handoff at shift change looks like.

If the background check is still completing, shadowing is also the assignment that fits the rule's supervision requirement: until every component clears, a new hire covered by the CCDF rule must be supervised at all times by a staff member with a qualifying check, and a shadow spends the whole day inside a cleared teacher's room.

Keep the arrangement explicit — treat the new hire as a supervised extra, not as the room's second teacher, until the check fully clears.

Room assignment is its own conversation.

Confirm the room matches the role hired — an infant-room hire and a preschool hire shadow different rooms — then walk the schedule with the lead teacher: where supplies and curriculum materials live, how medication and allergy information is stored and who can reach it, how the room communicates with families, and which co-teachers they'll work alongside.

Introduce the new teacher to the room's families at pickup during the first week, so the faces match the name the children are already saying.

Name the mentor before day one, and pick by proximity: an experienced teacher in the same age band, ideally in an adjacent room, who has volunteered for the role rather than been assigned it.

The mentor's onboarding job is narrow — the daily routines a checklist can't carry, how your center's curriculum is actually delivered, the guidance approach when a child struggles, and how family communication works here.

Brief weekly touchpoints across the first month are enough to keep it moving.

The full structure — mentor selection criteria, whether to pay a stipend, and a week-by-week buddy schedule through the first 90 days — is its own guide: mentoring new childcare teachers.

Start onboarding with a name and a first meeting on the calendar; build the deeper program once your first cohort of hires is through.

Put all three check-ins on the calendar the day the hire starts, so they survive a busy month.

Each has a different job:

• Day 30 — settling in. How the routines have landed, how relationships with co-teachers and families are forming, and which questions from orientation are still open. Confirm pre-service training is on track against the window your state sets — for subsidy-receiving programs, the federal CCDF floor is three months (45 CFR 98.44).
• Day 60 — practice. The classroom work itself: guidance and behavior support, curriculum delivery, and where the mentor sees strength and friction. This is the conversation for surfacing support needs while they're still small.
• Day 90 — expectations. A structured conversation against the role's expectations, now that the teacher has a full picture of the room. Close it by connecting growth areas to the ongoing training your center runs — the CCDF rules pair the three-month pre-service floor with ongoing annual professional development, and the 90-day conversation is the natural place to set the year's plan in motion.

Document each conversation briefly — date, what was discussed, what was agreed — and file it with the employee's records.

The notes turn onboarding from a mood into a record, which matters when a later performance conversation needs history.

Here is the full sequence in one place, ordered by when each item happens.

It is an employer workflow, not a compliance list — which items your state requires, and in what form, comes from your state child care licensing agency.

Before day one

• Signed offer letter and a set start date
• Personnel file opened: identity, qualification and payroll records, plus the handbook acknowledgment
• Every background-check component initiated for the new hire
• A fingerprint result in hand — either the FBI or the in-state check — before the hire's first time in a classroom
• A written supervision plan for the period before full clearance, naming the cleared staff member who supervises
• Registration for the state's pre-service or orientation health-and-safety course, with the completion deadline calendared
• Mentor named and a first meeting scheduled

First week

• Orientation delivered, with the required topics from the next section covered and documented
• Shadowing days scheduled through the week
• Room walk-through completed: daily schedule, materials, medication and allergy storage, family communication
• Families in the room introduced to the new teacher

First month

• Day-30 check-in held and documented
• Pre-service training completed and the certificate filed with its completion date
• First aid and CPR documentation filed where your state's rule requires it, with the renewal date logged

By day 90

• Day-60 and day-90 check-ins held and documented
• The year's professional-development plan started against the annual PD requirement
• The complete record — checks, training, acknowledgment, supervision plan — filed where it can be produced on request

Keep the master copy current: when your state licensing agency updates a requirement, re-check this list against it before the next hire starts.

The topics floor comes from the federal CCDF rules administered by ACF.

States must build their pre-service or orientation training requirements on the health-and-safety topics in 45 CFR 98.41, which cover:

• infectious disease prevention, including immunizations
• safe sleep and SIDS prevention
• medication administration
• food and allergy emergencies
• building and premises safety
• shaken baby syndrome, abusive head trauma and maltreatment prevention
• emergency preparedness
• hazardous materials
• transportation precautions
• pediatric first aid and CPR
• child abuse recognition and reporting

The deadline sits alongside the topics: 45 CFR 98.44 requires states to set pre-service or orientation training completed within three months, plus ongoing annual professional development, for caregivers, teachers and directors in subsidy-receiving programs.

Where your program sits relative to that federal floor, and whether your state's licensing rule adds more, is a question for your state child care licensing agency.

Hours are the state's, not the federal rule's: the CCDF rule sets the topics and the three-month deadline; the hour counts — and which courses count toward the requirement — come from your state's child care licensing agency or registry.

Get the current list from the agency before you build the orientation.

Sequence the first day so the required content lands before the classroom does.

Run it as a single full day or split it across the first week — the order matters more than the pace:

1. Welcome, tour and introductions — classrooms, common areas, entrances and exits, and where the emergency plans and first-aid kits are kept
2. Paperwork session — personnel-file records, payroll forms, and the handbook walkthrough with time for questions
3. Health-and-safety orientation — your state's required course plus your center's own procedures built on the CCDF topics above, from safe sleep to emergency drills
4. Classroom walk-through with the mentor — the daily schedule, routines, materials, and how the room documents its day
5. Family communication — how your center talks with families, who handles which conversation, and what the new teacher's role is
6. First-week plan — the shadowing schedule, the room assignment, the mentor's calendar, and the date of the day-30 check-in
7. Questions and first shift — end with the new teacher's questions and confirm where they report for their first regular shift

Budget the agenda as paid time. Under the DOL's FLSA rules (29 CFR 785.27), lectures, meetings and training count as unpaid time only when all four of these hold: they fall outside regular hours, attendance is truly voluntary, they are not directly job-related, and the employee performs no productive work.

Required orientation and state-mandated licensing training don't meet those tests — attendance required by the employer is not voluntary — so they are generally paid work time.

For wage-and-hour questions about your own orientation schedule, confirm with employment counsel or the DOL.

Every step above should leave a record.

For each new hire, keep: the orientation or pre-service certificate with its completion date; first aid and CPR documentation with expiration dates, where your state requires them; the signed handbook acknowledgment; the supervision plan you ran while the background check completed; and the check-in notes from days 30, 60 and 90.

File them in the personnel record you opened before day one, so the whole onboarding sits in one place.

The paper trail has a federal frame worth knowing: the CCDF rules pair the three-month pre-service requirement with ongoing annual professional development (45 CFR 98.44), so the file keeps growing after onboarding ends — each year's professional-development records adding to it.

Log renewal dates wherever you track them, so a first-aid card that expires mid-year is replaced before it lapses.

Two authorities, two record questions. What staff records your state expects a center to keep comes from your state child care licensing agency.

How long to keep records for someone who leaves wasn't covered by our research — the retention section of the personnel file checklist splits it between your licensing agency and, for wage-and-hour paperwork, the DOL's guidance or your employment counsel.

And when a licensing analyst asks for staff documentation, what you can produce depends on the rule your state enforces — for the visit itself, see preparing your staff for a licensing inspection.

The CCDF health-and-safety topics are available from training companies as online courses, and online delivery solves a real scheduling problem: a hire can start modules the week they sign.

Two rules keep it useful.

First, whether an online course counts toward your state's requirement is your state licensing agency's or registry's decision — a vendor's claim that its courses are accepted everywhere is the vendor's claim, not a state's, so check the course against your state's current approved list before you book it.

Second, treat the format as a mix: online modules carry the knowledge topics, while shadowing with the mentor carries the practice your building actually expects — how arrival, meals and nap run here, not in a course video.

Format doesn't change pay: online orientation and required online courses fall under the same FLSA tests — if the center requires the training, it is generally paid work time.

For topics with a hands-on component — pediatric first aid and CPR among them — ask your licensing agency directly whether an online-only format satisfies the requirement in your state, and book the in-person skills session where it doesn't.

However you deliver it, the sequence is the same: checks cleared or supervised, topics covered inside the window, a mentor attached, and the completion documented.

This page is employer information, not licensing or legal advice. Training topics, hours, deadlines and background-check rules are set by your state child care licensing agency, on the federal floor set by ACF's CCDF rules; wage-and-hour questions about paid training time go to the DOL or your employment counsel. Confirm each requirement with the agency before your next hire starts.