How do I become a child care center director in Oklahoma?

Do you want to become a child care cen­ter direc­tor in Okla­homa? If you aren’t sure how to begin, Care Cours­es can help you under­stand the process and pro­vide you with the train­ing you need to obtain the Bronze lev­el Okla­homa Director’s Cre­den­tial. Bronze is the entry-lev­el director’s cre­den­tial in Oklahoma.

Vis­it the Care Cours­es Okla­homa State Train­ing Page

Become an Oklahoma child care director

To work as an Okla­homa child care direc­tor, you must be at least 21 years old and obtain your Bronze or high­er lev­el OK Director’s Cre­den­tial. The require­ments for the Bronze lev­el cre­den­tial include the fol­low­ing four components:

1. General Education

You must have a high school diplo­ma or GED.

2. Experience

You must have at least 12 months of expe­ri­ence work­ing at least 30 hours a week as a teacher, mas­ter teacher, fam­i­ly child care home pri­ma­ry care­giv­er, assis­tant direc­tor, or direc­tor in a licensed child care setting.

3. Early Childhood Education (ECE) Child Development (CD) School Age (SA) Knowledge and Skills

You can meet the ECE, CD, and SA Knowl­edge and Skills require­ment by earn­ing one of the following:

• 6 ECE/CD/SA cred­it hours from the Cen­ter for Ear­ly Child­hood Pro­fes­sion­al Devel­op­ment (CECPD) approved course­work list at www.cecpd.org; or
• the Okla­homa Com­pe­ten­cy Cer­tifi­cate in ECE from the Okla­homa Depart­ment of Career Tech­nol­o­gy; or
• a nation­al CDA or CCP pro­fes­sion­al credential.

Care Cours­es can help you obtain the Bronze lev­el Okla­homa Director’s Cre­den­tial. You can use Care Cours­es to obtain a nation­al CDA. We’ve writ­ten a blog about how to earn your CDA! You can also learn more about CDA process by tak­ing our free CDA Cre­den­tial tuto­r­i­al.

4. Administration (admin) Management (mgt) Knowledge and Skills

You can meet the Admin­is­tra­tion and Man­age­ment Knowl­edge and Skills require­ment by earn­ing one of the following:

• an approved admin/mgt cre­den­tial such as the Nation­al Admin­is­tra­tor Cre­den­tial (NAC); or
• 3 admin/mgt cred­it hours from the approved course­work list at www.cecpd.org; or
• 30 admin/mgt hours of train­ing approved through the Okla­homa Pro­fes­sion­al Devel­op­ment Registry.

There is no appli­ca­tion fee. You can apply online or down­load a paper appli­ca­tion on the CECPD web­site. To main­tain the Bronze lev­el director’s cre­den­tial, you need 20 hours of job relat­ed train­ing each year. You may use Care Cours­es to earn those 20 hours of job relat­ed train­ing.

If you are look­ing to obtain the high­er-lev­el Cop­per, Sil­ver, Gold, or Plat­inum Director’s Cre­den­tial, refer to Appen­dix EE. (Page 109) in the OK DHS Child Care Ser­vices Licens­ing Require­ments for Child Care Pro­grams.

Note: Infor­ma­tion regard­ing Okla­homa Licens­ing Require­ments sourced from the OK DHS Child Care Ser­vices Licens­ing Require­ments for Child Care Pro­grams.

Care Courses Support

Ques­tions about Care Cours­es or how you can obtain the Bronze lev­el Okla­homa Director’s Cre­den­tial? Please call our office at 1–800-685‑7610. We are open Mon­day through Fri­day, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET. You can also reach us via email at info@CareCourses.com. We are here to help!