Child care workers could qualify through years on the job

North Carolina’s child care system would put more weight on what workers have done in the field, not just what they have collected on paper. The bill says lead teachers in licensed child care could qualify with five years of documented experience in a licensed child care facility in the state, which would count as equivalent to the North Carolina Early Childhood Credential.

That same experience-first approach would carry into the state’s star-rating system, where the Department of Child Development and Early Education would treat a credential earned through five years of work experience the same as one earned another way.

Experience as proof

The practical effect is to open a path for longtime child care workers who may have the skill and the daily judgment a classroom demands, but not the usual paper trail. For programs that struggle to hire, that could make a familiar worker easier to keep in place as a lead teacher.

A looser lane for after-school care

The bill also gives school-age child care programs more room to operate. Buildings and grounds already approved for school occupancy, and used by public or private elementary or middle schools, would be deemed to meet sanitation, fire and building code requirements when they are serving the same, or a subset of the same, school-age children in an after-school program.

The measure would also add the Weikart Youth Program Quality Assessment as a rating tool for out-of-school child care programs. The department would have six months after the act becomes law to complete the required crosswalk and make it available.