Daycares in Maine

Maine scores licensed daycares through Maine Rising Stars, the state's quality rating program. Rising Stars rates providers across multiple tiers covering licensing compliance, continuous quality improvement plans, staff qualifications and professional development, family engagement, inclusive practices, and learning environment standards.

Maine's minimum legal requirements for adult-to-child ratios and group sizes largely meet the standards published by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), the leading professional accreditation body for early-childhood programs and the most widely cited benchmark for high-quality care. The state caps infant ratios at 1:4 (matching NAEYC), toddler ratios at 1:5 (stricter than NAEYC's 1:6), and preschool ratios at 1:10 (matching NAEYC). Infant and preschool group sizes match NAEYC's recommended caps of 8 and 20; toddler groups are capped at 10, stricter than NAEYC's recommended 12. The state requires only a high school diploma for a lead teacher in a licensed center, where NAEYC's professional standard is a bachelor's degree, and pre-service training is not set in state rule. Required ongoing professional development is 30 hours per year, slightly above NAEYC's recommended 25.

These minimum legal requirements apply to every licensed daycare in Maine, regardless of its Rising Stars rating. They are one of the Structural inputs in every Childery rating shown above. The rating distribution above combines that Structural input with Rising Stars scores and other Process inputs to produce the Overall scores. For the full breakdown, see the Maine methodology page.