Daycares in New Jersey

New Jersey scores licensed daycares through Grow NJ Kids, the state's quality rating program. Grow NJ Kids scores providers on a 1 to 5 level scale across five standards: child growth and development, learning environment and curriculum, child assessment, serving diverse populations, and family and community partnerships.

New Jersey's minimum legal requirements for adult-to-child ratios 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, at the infant and toddler age bands, and the state requires a higher staff credential than most. New Jersey requires a Child Development Associate (CDA) credential at minimum for lead teachers in licensed centers, where most states require only a high school diploma; NAEYC's professional standard is a bachelor's degree. The state caps infant ratios at 1:4 (matching NAEYC), toddler ratios at 1:6 (matching NAEYC), and preschool ratios at 1:12 (NAEYC: 1:10). Group sizes run higher than NAEYC for the youngest ages, at 12 for infants (NAEYC: 8) and 20 for toddlers (NAEYC: 12); preschool groups are capped at 20, matching NAEYC. Required pre-service training is 2,080 hours, matching NAEYC's benchmark, and required ongoing professional development is 20 hours per year, below NAEYC's recommended 25.

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