Could the 2026 session deliver long over-due childcare licensing reform?

On Wednesday, the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) — formerly part of the Department of Human Services (DHS) — presented its new proposed childcare licensing standards before the House Children and Families Finance and Policy Committee. What is left is for the legislature to act.

As part of the Child Care Regulation Modernization Project enacted in 2021, the DCYF has reviewed childcare licensing standards and produced three draft proposals, two of which were subject to public comments. See American Experiment Comments on those drafts here, here, here, and here.

The final draft is a marked improvement over the first two. It has incorporated several of the comments American Experiment and childcare providers submitted to DCYF. In addition to loosening stringent hiring requirements for daycare teachers, DCYF is proposing greater flexibility so that family childcare providers — who must now compete with publicly funded Pre-K — can care for more young children.

Certainly, more can be done to ease the licensing burden for providers. But the proposals under consideration are a significant step in the right direction. Hopefully, the legislature will treat them as such.

Licensed Daycare Centers

The most significant changes for daycare centers would happen under staff hiring requirements.

Currently, Minnesota law requires a high school graduate to have 16 semester credits of postsecondary education and 4,160 hours, or 2 years, of experience as an Assistant teacher to become a teacher. To qualify as an assistant teacher, a high school graduate must have 2,080 hours or 1 year of work experience and 9 semester credits of post-secondary education. Which means that, altogether, a high school graduate needs over three years of combined education and work experience before qualifying as a teacher.

Of course, applicants have several pathways to qualify for a teacher’s post. However, most require substantial investment of time and money. Someone with a Childcare Development Associate (CDA) credential — which can take from 6 to 12 months to complete — for instance, needs 1,560 hours or 9 months of work experience.

Most applicants, however, do not meet these requirements.

As DCYF notes in its report to the legislature, in 2024 the agency issued “over 4,000 variances…related to staff qualifications.” That is, due to the shortage of qualified applicants, DCYF issued permission over 4,000 times for daycare centers to hire individuals who did not meet current requirements.

As the DCYF explains, variances, while a normal part of the licensing process, are time-consuming and can be uncertain. New standards are intended to reflect the qualification level of the applicant pool, reducing the need for variances. It would also allow centers the option to develop their own talent, something they have requested.

So, what are the new requirements?

The New Requirements

Under new rules, someone who possesses a high school diploma would need 12 semester credits of post-secondary education and 480 hours or three months of work experience to qualify as a teacher. To be an assistant teacher, the same applicant would need:

1. At least 6 semester credits of post-secondary education; or
2. 50 hours of commissioner-approved training; or
3. At least 160 hours of experience, and be making progress towards becoming a teacher.

Below is a side-by-side look at current and proposed standards for select pathways.

Potentially, to compensate for the reduced training for teachers, the requirements for center directors will change as follows:

1. Age: A director must be 21, up from 18
2. Education/ training: 12 semester credits of education (up from 6) in “postsecondary child development education, supervision, management, administration, or leadership,” OR
3. 120 hours of training, also in child development, supervision, management, administration, or leadership. This would be an additional 30 hours on the current 90.

Family Childcare Standards

For a long time, family childcare providers have specifically expressed concern about stringent limits to the number of infants and toddlers they can care for. The expansion of free Pre-K has also meant that while these providers are losing older children to publicly funded programs, they cannot increase the number of younger children in their care.

To remedy this, DCYF is proposing several changes:

1. For licenses C1 and C2, a caregiver could have an additional infant or toddler. The maximum number of children under each license remains the same. A caregiver can have up to 10 children under C1 and 12 children under C2.
2. For C3 (also known as group family childcare), two caregivers can have two additional infants/toddlers. Caregivers are limited to 14 children under this license.
3. C4: a new license that combines aspects of group family childcare and non-residential programs (such as churches and non-profits) under the umbrella ‘Community Family Childcare.’ Two providers can care for up to 18 children.

To address the training shortages that especially plague providers in Greater Minnesota, DCYF is also proposing to reduce the required annual training hours for primary providers from 16 to 10. Pre-service training hours for helpers are reduced from 6 to 4.

For both centers and family childcare, DCYF will develop a “Child Care Licensing Basics ” course that every caregiver must complete before caring for children.

Other areas the legislature could consider

Numerous studies have suggested that stringent staff-child ratios and group size limits significantly contribute to high childcare costs. This is true especially for younger children.

Daycare centers in Minnesota are required to have a caregiver for every 4 infants (aged 6 weeks to 16 months). While this is similar to other states, Minnesota has smaller maximum group sizes. Additionally, other states, such as North Dakota, can allow up to 5 infants per caregiver.

For toddlers (aged 16 to 33 months), Minnesota requires one caregiver for every 7 children, which is also similar to requirements in other states. But the maximum number of children per group is higher in most states. Minnesota limits centers to 14 children per group, compared to 15 in North Dakota, 20 in South Dakota, and 30 in Iowa.

DCYF has not suggested any changes to these standards. Therefore, any impact that changes in hiring requirements have on prices will be limited. For additional reform, the legislature should seriously consider changes to the state’s staff-child ratios and group size limits.

Additionally, even if reduced to 20 hours, Minnesota’s annual training requirements for teachers will still be above the median. The legislature could push for further reform. Lawmakers also need to question why caregivers who work more than 20 hours a week are required to receive more training than those who work less than 20 hours a week. After all, these caregivers apply the same type of knowledge and training regardless of how much time they spend with children.

Minnesota is long overdue for childcare licensing reform. Lawmakers must leave no stone unturned.