Opening and Licensing Your Childcare Center Business

	Topics Covered:
	Important Information on Childcare Business Licensing Types of Childcare Businesses Center Requirements Indoor Furnishings and More Outdoor Space Requirements Safety for Indoor and Outdoor Play Equipment Ratios for Children to Teachers in Childcare Centers Transportation Requirements for Childcare Centers Licensing Your Childcare Center

Important Information on Childcare Business Licensing

The Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) once oversaw licensing of childcare businesses. However, since 2017, the task of overseeing licensing now falls under the Health and Human Services Commission.

Today, childcare providers may need to connect with DFPS if they suspect cases of child abuse or neglect. DFPS conducts these investigations and offers a state-wide hotline and website to report suspected incidents. For emergencies, call the hotline at 1-800-252-5400. For non-emergency reporting, use the website: https://www.txabusehotline.org.

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Types of Childcare Businesses

• Licensed Center: Has more than 7 children. Care provided outside of the director's home. Offers care for two to fewer than 24 hours at least three days a week. Has at least one annual, unannounced inspection from CCR. Must meet minimum standards for licensed centers.
• Licensed Home-Based: Located in the primary caregiver's home. Cares for seven to 12 children younger than 13. Care offered at least three days a week for two to fewer than 24 hours. Receives one unannounced inspection from CCR each year. Must meet minimum requirements for licensed home-based childcare.
• Registered Home-Based: Care for up to six children under 13 during school hours with an extra six under 13 after school. Care given in the primary caregiver's home. Has one unannounced inspection by CCR. Care provided at least four hours a day for at a minimum of three days a week for three consecutive weeks or care for forty days over a 12-month period. Must meet minimum standards for registered home-based childcare.
• Listed Home-Based: Care for no more than three unrelated children in the primary caregiver's home. No routine inspections. Must meet minimum standards for listed home-based childcare.
• Small Employer-Based: Care offered on the premises of an employer with fewer than 100 employees. No routine inspections required and no minimum standards. Provides care for up to 12 children of the small employer's workers.

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Center Requirements

Your childcare center must meet minimum requirements for indoor and outdoor facilities. Because these requirements include every aspect of your center, you should review the state’s mandates if you have specific questions. Or talk to Licensing to find out if you need to make changes to make your center compliant.

Facility Square Footage and Other Structural Requirements

When applying for a license for your center, you need to provide dimensions of your center, inside and out. These dimensions help licensing to determine if your center meets the minimum requirements for indoor and outdoor activity areas.

Indoor Space Requirements

Your center needs adequate space for indoor activities for all children in your care. At a minimum, you must have at least 30 square feet per child of available indoor activity space. In a few instances, you may have less than this minimum amount of space temporarily if you have children older than 18 months doing activities that the smaller space allows for. However, for children under 18 months, you must adhere to the 30-square-foot minimum at all times.

When calculating the indoor space for activities, Licensing will not include the following:

• Bathrooms
• Storage closets or units
• Bookcases, shelves, or counters not used by children
• Cooking spaces in the kitchen
• Hallways
• Swimming pools

Indoor and outdoor spaces must include areas dedicated to caring for children under 18 months if you have more than 12 children in your center. For centers with fewer than 13 children, the 18-month old and younger children may be in the same room as older children as long as an adult can supervise the younger ones and respond to them.

Your center may share non-classroom activity space with another program. You must first have a written plan on how your caregivers will account for all children and maintain constant supervision of them in the shared area. Licensing may require that you supply them with this plan. To satisfy Licensing requirements, this plan must include the following:

• Nature of the program sharing your indoor activity space and the types of activities they may do
• Ages of children in the space

Centers with built-in loft spaces may include the loft area as part of the interior space as long as children can safely reach the area and caregivers can constantly supervise children in the loft. Lofts should have stairs with handrails or rung ladders for access and barriers to prevent falls.

If your center has upper levels or a basement, you must contact your state or local fire authority for permission and authorization to have children on non-ground-level floors.

Indoor Furnishings and More

Toilets

All childcare facilities need at least one flush toilet. If your center has more than 12 children, you need a minimum of one flush toilet for every 17 children 18 months old or older. For centers with fewer than 13 children, you must have at least one flush toilet for children’s use.

The toilet needs to be inside your center and easily accessible by children at least 18 months or older.

Sinks

You need to have the same ratio of hand-washing sinks for children as you do toilets in your center. If your center has at least 13 children, you need one sink for every 17 children who are at least 18 months old. If your center cares for fewer than 13 children, you need to have at least one sink for children to wash their hands.

In diaper-changing areas, you must have one sink where a caregiver can wash their hands while still supervising children.

All sinks in your center need to have running water, soap, and a way for children to dry their hands. For hand drying, supply an air dryer or disposable towels.

General Bathroom Guidelines

If your center has urinals, they count as no more than 50% of the count of toilets toward the toilet-to-children ratio. Additionally, bathrooms with urinals must also have at least one flush toilet. Potty chairs can augment the number of toilets, but they do not count as toilets in the toilet-to-child ratios.

Your toilets, sinks, and urinals do not need to be child sized. Children need to be able to reach these fixtures and use them safely and independently. If fixtures are too tall for children, have a non-slip platform or anchored steps to allow them access.

Restrooms at your center should ideally have no locks on the doors or locks out of children’s reach. However, in cases where you cannot remove or move locks, you must follow guidelines that prevent children under five from locking themselves inside. First, you need to have a caregiver outside the door when children under five use the restroom. This caregiver must be able to unlock the door from the outside. Licensing will ask caregivers to demonstrate that they can quickly unlock the bathroom door when needed.

Your center may share restrooms with another program, but you must have a written plan to provide to Licensing about the shared nature of the restrooms. The plan must include the proximity of the restrooms to the entrances and exits to the children’s area of your center, the nature of other programs that may share the restrooms, toilets, or sinks, and the ages of the children using the facilities.

Furnishings in Your Center

All furniture in your center must be easy-to-clean, safe, and appropriately sized for the ages of children using them. If you use chairs that have safety straps, you must fasten the straps to hold children in place when they sit in the chair.

Each child in the center must have an individually labeled floor mat, cot, or bed for sleeping. The center or parents may provide these. Sleeping surfaces must be washable or waterproof for easy cleaning. Floor mats need the sleeping sides and floor sides clearly labeled to ensure that children place them properly on the floor.

Children in your center also need places to store their belongings and anything they need to take home. Create cubbies, storage bins, or other spaces dedicated to each child. Clearly label the spots in a way the child can readily recognize their storage space, such as using a symbol or photograph for children who cannot read or writing the names of children who can.

Childcare centers must have a listed telephone number. The phone must be in the center or located close enough to use in emergencies. A person needs to be available to operate the phone. Their duties should include answering calls, messaging caregivers about children, or making phone calls on behalf of the center at any time.

Outdoor Space Requirements

Outside your childcare center, you must have more square footage per child for activities, 80 square feet per child. The only exceptions to this space requirement are if you operate only as an alternative daycare, also called drop-in daycare, or a get-well care center for kids recovering from illnesses. Compared to your useable indoor space, the outdoor space must be at least 25% of your indoor activity area.

For the safety of children under five, you must enclose your outdoor play area with a fence at least four feet tall if you will have any children younger than five years from your center using it. As with other outdoor requirements, you are not required to have a fenced-in outdoor play area if you offer alternative (drop-in) daycare or get-well care. Additionally, if you only operate as an after-school program that uses classrooms and playgrounds in Texas Education Agency-overseen schools, you do not have to fence in the outside play area.

For the enclosed play space, you must have at least two exits from the area. One of these exits must lead away from the center. The other exit can lead into the center. If these exits have locking gates, you may keep them locked during operating hours. However, all caregivers must be capable of demonstrating that they can quickly unlock the gates in an emergency. Licensing will request such a demonstration during their inspection.

Ideally, you should have an outdoor play area that connects directly to one wall of your center. In instances where you do not have direct access to an outdoor activity space, you can submit a request for Licensing to allow you to take children to a nearby neighborhood park or school playground. When assessing whether to approve your request, Licensing will look at the following:

• Vehicular and pedestrian traffic in the area
• Ages of children in your center
• Use of the outdoor space by people other than children from your center
• Availability of age-appropriate equipment in the play area
• Accessibility to the outdoor space from your center by foot and push cart
• Reasonable accessibility to restrooms
• Ability to quickly call for and receive help if a child becomes sick or injured

Once Licensing approves your use of an outdoor space not connected to your center, you must send a written notification to all parents. Future parents should also have written notification on the day they enroll their children. Additionally, you must provide a written plan to keep children safe while going to and from the play area and how you will supervise them in the outdoor space.

You may have shared outdoor activity spaces with other programs. Before allowing children from your center to use a shared outdoor space, you must create a written plan. This plan must have information on how close restrooms and the entrances and exits to the children’s area are. You must also include who else shares the space and the type of activities they do. Finally, you need ages of the children in the outdoor area from your center.

Having a safe place for kids to play outdoors provides them with a place to move around while your center remains compliant with licensing requirements.

Safety for Indoor and Outdoor Play Equipment

Whether children from your center use your play equipment or a playground nearby, you should verify that the area has safe equipment. Read through the basic safety guidelines when looking over play areas and equipment used by your center’s children. A few of the rules are:

• Ensure that the equipment has a layout that allows caregivers supervising the children to see all children at once.
• Use of equipment must adhere to manufacturer’s guidelines.
• Check that equipment does not have any areas where children or their clothing could fall through, become entrapped, or get entangled. Play equipment also should not have any places that could cut, pinch, or crush any part of a child.
• All equipment needs firm, secure anchors set below the surface of the ground to prevent tripping.
• Platforms need barriers to prevent children from falling through or becoming stuck in the barrier. For children pre-K and younger, platforms 20 inches or higher from the ground need barriers. For older children, barriers are only required for platforms 30 inches high.
• All stairs and climbing equipment should have handrails.
• Climbing equipment, inflatables, and swings need to have unitary surfacing materials under them to cushion falls.

When supervising children in a play area, prevent all children from using the following types of dangerous play equipment:

• Metal swings or swings with heavy metal components
• Freely swinging ropes, exercise rings, or trapeze bars with long chains
• Swings used by multiple children
• Trampolines
• Swinging gates and giant strides
• Any type of equipment from which a child could fall through or from, such as some types of jungle gyms or monkey bars

If you have children under five you must supervise in an outdoor play area, the state provides additional restrictions on the types of equipment they can use. Read through the lists of equipment children under five and under four cannot use.

Children should play on age-appropriate equipment. To see if playground equipment is suitable for an age group, check for its safety and height. Height restrictions based on ages include:

• Children younger than two years old cannot use equipment with play surfaces higher than 32 inches (2 feet, 8 inches) from the ground.
• Those between five and two can play on equipment with play surfaces 60 inches (5 feet) from the ground.
• Children older than five may use play equipment with surfaces up to 84 inches (7 feet) from the ground.

If you have specific questions about the rules about a type of equipment, refer to the state regulations for playground equipment used at childcare centers on items such as swings and inflatables.

Keeping the children from your center safe inside and outside can help to reduce the chances of injuries while still allowing kids to have fun.

Ratios for Children to Teachers in Childcare Centers

The ratio of children to teachers in a childcare center ensures that all children have proper supervision at all times. Required maximum ratios depend on the maximum number of children you care for in your center.

For Small Childcare Centers with 12 or Fewer Children

If your center cares for 12 or fewer children, you have different guidelines than for larger centers that oversee more children. If you have only one caregiver, the number of children they may supervise depends on the ages of the kids. Use the table created by the State of Texas to determine how many children one caregiver can watch. More than two caregivers can watch 12 or fewer children in one group of all ages.

If you don’t have enough caregivers to separate children under 18 months old from older children, you may combine these groups as long as the caregiver can properly supervise the infants at all times.

When taking children on field trips, when adults and children from your center are present, you must adjust your child-to-teacher ratio to conform to the table.  If you have adult chaperons or volunteers with your group who are not caregivers, you still need to maintain the typical classroom ratio for children to teachers with qualified caregivers. Similarly, when visiting a place without other adults or children not from your center, you need to have a classroom ratio of children to caregivers.

Transporting children in a vehicle for your center also requires you to maintain the classroom ratio of children to caregivers as long as all the children on the vehicle are older than two. Only include the driver in this ratio if they are a qualified caregiver for your center.

If you have children younger than four on your center’s vehicle, you need to have an adult caregiver in addition to the driver for every group of four children younger than two.

Some special situations have different children-to-caregiver ratios. Consult the state’s regulations for more information on how many caregivers need to supervise children for water play, sprinkler play, visiting swimming pools, using wading pools, and other unusual circumstances.

For Larger Childcare Centers with 13 or More Children

Larger childcare centers that have 13 or more children have distinctive requirements to follow governing child-to-caregiver ratios.

For classes with one teacher, the number of children the caregiver may supervise depends on their ages. A table outlines these specific numbers.  For two or more caregivers, your facility may have groups composed of no more than the number of children per the chart.

When combining groups of children with those under 18 months, the youngest in the infant group cannot be younger than 18 months compared to the oldest in the older group. For instance, if the youngest in the infant group is 10 months old, the oldest in the other group that merges with the infants can be no more than 28 months old (2 years, 4 months).

For field trips where children other than those from your center will be, use the state’s minimum requirements for child-to-caregiver ratios. You must maintain the child-to-caregiver ratio for classrooms when you have a field trip to a controlled space without others from outside your center or if you bring additional adult volunteers with your group. If you have adults who are not caregivers but volunteer to accompany your center’s field trip, such as non-caregiver employees from your center, you cannot include them in the child-to-caregiver ratio.

For transporting children two years old or older from your center, you need to keep the same child-to-caregiver ratio that you use for classrooms. The driver may only count in this ratio if they, too, are among the qualified caregivers for your center. If you have children younger than two years old, you need to have an extra adult for each group of four children with ages under 24 months.

For any other types of situations that require special child-to-teacher ratios, such as playing around wading or swimming pools, refer to the state’s guidelines.

Give the children at your center the right type of care by ensuring that you maintain strict ratios of children to teachers in all activities.

Transportation Requirements for Childcare Centers

The state of Texas has different requirements for those transporting children to or from a childcare facility. Make sure that your director and anyone involved in transporting children under nine, or under the development age of nine, has the correct training and licensing.

Licensing Board Requirements for Transporting Children

Transporting children requirements are the same, regardless of the type of childcare facility they travel to or from. Feel free to look through the regulations on transportation for your type of facility, home-based or childcare center.

Vehicle Requirements

The Licensing Board does not specify the type of vehicle you can transport children in. Whether you use a general-purpose vehicle, such as a van, or a large or small school bus, the vehicle must meet the requirements for its type from the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles. Additionally, the vehicle needs regular maintenance for safe operation.

Restraining Passengers and Drivers

All drivers and adult passengers must wear safety belts whenever the vehicle is moving. Only in large school buses that do not have passenger seat belts can adult passengers ride without one.

Children must be restrained according to their height and weight.

Generally, when riding in small school buses or general-purpose vehicles, children under two must be in a properly restrained rear-facing child safety seat.

Children ages four to seven who are within the height and weight requirements for a forward-facing child safety seat must use one.

Those ages seven and up who have outgrown child safety seats but are not tall enough for the shoulder strap to go across their chest should have a booster seat or a belt-positioning vest or harness.

When children reach the correct size and age for using safety belts, always place one child per safety belt. Only use the shoulder harness for a child if it fits properly across the chest and does not cut into their neck or sit behind them. If the child is too small to properly wear a shoulder harness, place them in a booster seat, vest, or harness that places the seatbelt shoulder strap in the correct position across the child’s chest.

Parents or your childcare facility may provide the age and size-appropriate safety seats for children.

For large school buses, follow the manufacturer’s instructions for safely securing children of various ages.

Finally, do not allow any children under 12 years old to ride in the front seat.

Equipment to Always Have on the Vehicle or with the Driver

Vehicles need to have either a two-way radio or cell phone on board to call for help in case of an emergency. Additionally, for childcare centers, a caregiver at the center must know the set transportation route, leave, and return times. They must take action to find the vehicle if it has not returned when expected.

Also, every vehicle transporting children must have:

• The driver’s current driver’s license for the type of vehicle used
• A list of children on board
• Parents’ names and phone numbers for each child
• Emergency contact information for each child
• Signed emergency medical transport and treatment forms for each child

In addition to the above, childcare center vehicles must have the following:

• First aid kit
• Fire extinguisher
• The name and phone number of the childcare center printed on the exterior of the vehicle or the childcare center’s director’s name, center phone number, and center name in the passenger area of the vehicle or glove compartment.

While adults on board may never need the above materials, they are vital if an emergency occurs.

Loading and Unloading

When loading and unloading a vehicle, try to find a protected driveway or parking lot to do so. If any children must cross a street, a qualified adult must accompany the children.

Before leaving the vehicle, ensure that all children have left. Conducting a physical walk through of the vehicle to check between seats can ensure that no children remain in the vehicle.

Never leave any child alone in a vehicle at any time. There must always be an adult present with children in a vehicle.

Number of Adults on Board the Vehicle

If your center transports children over the age of 24 months, you must have enough adults on board the vehicle to maintain the regular classroom ratio of children to caregivers. When transporting any children under 24 months, your center needs one adult for every group of four children under two years of age. The driver cannot be one of the caregivers for those under two.

Child Safety Alarms for Childcare Center Transportation Vehicles

Your childcare center’s vehicle needs to have a child safety alarm to alert the driver to check for children before leaving and locking the vehicle.

Transportation vehicles used for childcare centers and purchased or leased any time after December 31, 2013 must have child safety alarms installed if both of the following apply:

• The vehicle transports eight or more children and
• Your childcare center uses the vehicle for transporting children.

Check the alarm to ensure that children cannot turn it off. Only a qualified adult or the driver should have access to turning off this safety alarm. 

Whenever the child safety alarm goes off, the driver must check that all children aboard are accounted for and conduct a physical walkthrough of the vehicle.

Your center must maintain information on when you first purchased or leased any vehicles used to transport children. The only exceptions to this requirement are if your vehicles have child safety alarms equipped or they do not transport eight children or more.

Transportation Training

Before driving a vehicle or riding in one with children who have developmental ages of nine or lower, employees and the center director must complete two hours of transportation safety training.

This training cannot count toward any other hours of professional training. Therefore, for directors of centers that transport children, the directors must have 30 hours of annual training plus two hours of transportation safety training.

As with other types of professional training, those who must have transportation safety training must repeat the training once a year.

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Licensing Your Childcare Center

All childcare centers require licensing to operate in Texas. When applying, you’ll progress through several stages starting with having a pre-application interview and filling out your application paperwork. For your center, you’ll need to include the following forms and information in your submission:

• Application for a License or Certification to Operate a Child Day Care Facility
• A floor plan of your building's interior and exterior with dimensions
• A Request for Background Check form for yourself and each of your employees, whether caregivers or workers
• The Governing Body/Director Designation form for your childcare business
• A Personal History Statement for yourself if you are the director or co-director of your childcare business
• The Controlling Person form with your information if you are the director or licensed administrator. This form indicates who makes the decisions in managing your childcare center.
• If your center is a limited liability company or a for-profit corporation, you must submit proof that your business is not delinquent (behind) in paying franchise tax. Options for this include:
  • Submitting a Franchise Tax Certificate of Good Standing
  • The Articles of Incorporation showing that the business has not been operating long enough to owe any taxes at the application date.
  • Proof that the business does not owe these taxes (is exempt) under the Texas Tax Code Chapter 171
• Proof that you have liability insurance or a valid reason for not carrying it
• Plan of Operation for Licensed Center and Home Operations, which shows how your home will meet the minimum standards for childcare
• Verification of doing the pre-application interview within one year of applying
• The application fee
• As an alternative to the above steps, you may sign up for a Child Care Regulation account online and submit your information and background check requests through that portal

After doing the pre-application and interview, you will need to wait for Licensing to accept your forms as completed and schedule a visit to inspect your center. If you missed anything on your application forms, you’ll need to add the missing information and resubmit the forms before moving to the next stage of an inspection.

During the inspection, Licensing will review the inside and outside of your center, staff, and procedures. The process ensures that your center meets the minimum standards for a safe and effective childcare center.

After inspection, Licensing will decide to license or deny your center. 

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