Arizona Daycare Ratios: Staff-to-Child Ratios and Group Sizes by Age

Arizona sets center ratios in rule R9-5-404 of its Administrative Code, administered by ADHS's Bureau of Child Care Licensing.

A licensee must ensure that at least the listed staff-to-children ratios are maintained at all times when providing child care services: infants 1:5 or 2:11; 1-year-olds 1:6 or 2:13; 2-year-olds 1:8; 3-year-olds 1:13; 4-year-olds 1:15; 5-year-olds not in school 1:20; and school-age children 1:20.

The 2:11 and 2:13 rows are the two-caregiver options: a room with two qualified staff can carry up to 11 infants or 13 one-year-olds, where one caregiver alone covers five or six.

The youngest child in a group decides which row applies, which matters whenever a room mixes ages.

Arizona's center rule sets staff-to-child ratios only.

R9-5-404 lists no maximum group sizes, so the table above shows Not set in the group-size column for every age.

The rule caps how many children each caregiver supervises through the ratios, but it sets no separate cap on how many children make up one group.

If a chart publishes an Arizona group-size maximum, that figure did not come from R9-5-404; group-size questions go to ADHS's Bureau of Child Care Licensing.

Arizona sets each group's required ratio by the age of the youngest child in the group, so a room that mixes two- and three-year-olds runs at the two-year-old ratio of 1:8.

When six or more enrolled children are present in the facility, an infant may not be placed for supervision with a child who is not an infant, so at that point infants are supervised in a group of their own.

The ratios apply at all times when child care services are provided, and the rule text we reviewed sets no separate nap-time ratio; how ADHS reads nap-time staffing is a question for the Bureau of Child Care Licensing.

A volunteer who is qualified as a director, a teacher-caregiver or an assistant teacher-caregiver may be counted as staff in staff-to-children ratios.

Aides cannot.

A teacher-caregiver aide must be 16 or older, but neither aides nor student-aides may be counted in the ratios, so an aide is extra help in the room, never one of the required staff.

At a pool activity, a lifeguard who is a staff member also cannot be counted in ratio.

Separately, when six or more children are present, the director or a qualified designee plus one additional staff member must be on site.

Arizona's home settings are governed by their own capacity rules — not the R9-5-404 center ratio table above.

The Department of Economic Security (DES) may certify a family child care home provider to care for up to four children for compensation, or up to six children total when no more than four are paid; in the six-child home, no more than two children may be younger than age 1 unless they are a sibling group.

The other home setting is the child care group home, a residence certified by ADHS — not licensed — that provides care for five to ten children through age 12.

A group home needs an additional adult staff member on premises when six or more enrolled children are present.

Arithmetic on the ratio table shows what the rule asks of a small center with three rooms: ten infants, twelve one-year-olds and 13 three-year-olds.

The infant room needs two qualified caregivers, because one caregiver covers at most five infants and two cover up to 11.

The one-year-old room also needs two, since one caregiver covers six and two cover up to 13.

The three-year-old room of 13 runs on a single caregiver at 1:13.

None of those counts drops because an aide is in the room: aides, student-aides and a staff lifeguard are outside the ratio, and once six or more enrolled children are present in the facility the director or a qualified designee plus one additional staff member must also be on site.

This is the rule's arithmetic, not a staffing plan ADHS has reviewed; a center's schedule has to satisfy the ratios at all times.