Daycares in Ohio

Ohio scores licensed daycares through Step Up To Quality, the state's quality rating program. Step Up To Quality scores providers on a 1 to 5 star scale across four domains: learning and development, administrative and leadership practices, staff qualifications and professional development, and family and community partnerships.

Ohio's minimum legal requirements for adult-to-child ratios fall below 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. The state caps infant ratios at 1:5 (NAEYC: 1:4) and toddler ratios at 1:7 (NAEYC: 1:6); preschool ratios are not set as a single state rule and vary by provider. Group sizes are also looser than NAEYC for the youngest ages, at 12 for infants (NAEYC: 8) and 14 for toddlers (NAEYC: 12); preschool group sizes vary by provider. The state does not set a single rule on lead-teacher credentials, and pre-service training is not set in state rule. Required ongoing professional development is 6 hours per year, well below NAEYC's recommended 25.

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