Becoming an Administrator.

...oh where to start? Do your groundwork. The sheer amount of work to be done before you even open a center is phenomenal.

First things first, you MUST go to the Child Care Center Orientation, no getting out of it.

  A center administrator should make sure of many things before starting the licensing process, because you've only got 90 days. For instance, An administrator looking at starting from the ground up, should make doubly sure that any building that they are considering for their site meets local city/county ordinances, it is a real pain to find out that the building you just took out a loan for needs $50k in safety updates, it is best to see if the Fire Marshall can take a look first as he can set you straight. That is just a small sample of the challenges that you face as an administrator, as an administrator you must make sure you are completely up to date on all regulations and training programs, and you need to ensure all of your staff are up to date in all of their training programs and that they are on the up-n-up with all those regulations too. Quite a hefty load.
 All of that, and I have only just scraped the surface of what administrators and directors need to accomplish and have in place, in order to run and maintain a center.
  There is so much more, Declarations of Compliance, DEL portable background checks, finger prints, lists of staff and documentation showing they are clear to go, floor plans drawn to scale, parent policies, USDA nutrition guidelines, CACFP, etc, etc, the list goes on and on. So, it is very wise to have all of your ducks in a row when applying to open and run a new center, and even if you are "simply" taking over an existing center.
  I take my hat off to all of the administrators and directors who work so hard to open these centers, and then put in the time to keep them open, helping families and their children.