New York

Overall Policy Lever Score

4

Child care licensing minimally requires that directors of programs have a CDA, two years of teaching experience in an early childhood setting, and two years of experience supervising staff in a child care setting. The competency-based administrator credential minimally requires an associate degree (or 60 credits towards a bachelor’s degree), with a minimum of 18 semester hours in early childhood education and 18 semester hours in children’s program administration. The administrator credential is listed as an option to meet training and education requirements for child care licensing and is embedded in the state QRIS. Elementary principal licensure requires a master’s degree and offers pre-K certification. The statewide QRIS awards the highest amount of points for director qualifications if the director holds a director credential, a master’s degree, college credit in early childhood education, and college credit in business or administration. There are t early childhood leadership degree programs and one early childhood leadership academy.

Interesting Facts: New York

  • Four schools offer degrees, certificates or coursework to support the NY Children’s Program Administrator Credential.

  • The Program Administration Scale, NAEYC Self-study, or Head Start Monitoring Protocols are embedded in the QRIS standards.

  • There are 11,976 family child care providers in New York—the second highest in the nation following California.