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

South Dakota sets center ratios in ARSD 67:42:17:21, administered by the South Dakota Department of Social Services (DSS).

The table has three bands: 1:5 covers every child up to age 3, so infants, one-year-olds and two-year-olds all count against the same ratio; 1:10 covers ages 3 and 4; and 1:15 covers age 5 and over.

A staff member's own children count toward the ratio.

Group size works differently from the ratio — the next section covers it.

South Dakota's rule sets group size by approved room capacity rather than by age, so the maximum group size for a room is a number attached to that room, not to the children's ages.

That makes capacity the cap a room's enrollment works from, and the rule's one adjustment to it allows up to three extra children above a room's approved capacity when the ratios are maintained.

For a center, the practical order is to read each room's approved capacity first, then apply the age-band ratio to work out how many staff that group needs.

A program that serves 20 or fewer children and routinely operates a mixed age group staffs at 1:10, but the under-two caps travel with each provider: no more than four children under two per provider, and no more than two of those under age one.

Larger mixed groups follow the younger-children rule: when three or more of the children are under three, the group runs at 1:5.

On nap time, the ratio provisions our research read set counts by age band and mixed-age status and do not include a separate nap-time adjustment, so confirm how DSS applies coverage while children nap before you build a schedule around one.

A South Dakota center counts providers in ratio, and every provider must be at least 18 years old.

A provider's assistant may be 14, but an assistant may not be left alone with children in care and counts in ratio only under the direct supervision of a provider or the director.

Training is part of counting too: in centers and school-age programs, each director and provider counted in staff-child ratios completes 10 hours of annual training, and CPR renewal does not count toward it.

The rule also counts a staff member's own children toward the ratio, so a provider's own child in the room counts against that room's 1:5, 1:10 or 1:15.

Family day care homes run on their own counts.

One provider may care for up to 12 children, counting the provider's own children under six; alone, no more than four of the children may be under two, and no more than three of those under one.

With an assistant, up to eight children may be under two.

A family day care assistant may be 14, but an assistant under 18 counts in ratio only when another adult is present and may not be left alone with the children.

Above 12 children the setting changes category: homes with 13 to 20 children are group family day care homes and those with 21 or more are day care centers, and both must be licensed, counting children under six living in the home.

Family day care registration also has a scope limit: the registration rules apply only to homes paid, directly or indirectly, out of public funds.

Take a center with three rooms open at once: a room with 10 children under age 3, a room with 20 children ages 3 and 4, and a school-age room with 15 children age 5 and over.

The youngest room needs two staff members (10 children at 1:5), the preschool room two (20 at 1:10), and the school-age room one (15 at 1:15) — five staff on the floor.

Each room's approved capacity still binds: a preschool room approved for fewer than 20 tops out at its capacity plus the rule's three-extra-children allowance when the ratios are maintained — the capacity and the allowance, not the 1:10 ratio alone, set the group.

The mixed-age rule is the other lever: a program serving 20 or fewer children can staff the whole group at 1:10 — two providers for 20 children — as long as each provider has no more than four children under two, at most two of them under one, so two providers could cover at most eight under two.

This is arithmetic on the ratio rule, an illustration of how the numbers combine — not a staffing plan for a particular center; centers confirm their coverage with DSS.

South Dakota's child care licensing rules sit in one consolidated chapter, ARSD 67:42:17, which took effect July 3, 2023.

The ratio, group-size, mixed-age and family day care counts on this page come from that chapter and the day care licensure statutes behind it.

A South Dakota ratio chart that cites any other rule chapter is not citing the chapter the current rules sit in, so read it against the current chapter on the South Dakota Legislature's rules site, or confirm it with DSS, before staffing to it.