Regulation approval process and timeline
- On September 24, 2024, the Legislative Regulation Review Committee approved changes to child care center and group child care home regulations with technical corrections and substitute pages (as recommended by the Legislative Commissioners’ Office)
- These changes were submitted for final publishing to the Secretary of State on October 7, 2024
- The new regulations should take effect within the next few days
- OEC will notify all providers of the effective date as soon as it is finalized by the Secretary of the State
However, until the new regulations are finalized, programs must continue following the current rules.
What’s changing: new ratio and group size for 2-year-olds
The proposed changes include new staff-to-child ratios and group sizes for two-year-olds:
- 1 staff member per 5 children
- Maximum group size of 10 children
Programs can review the proposed regulations with technical corrections.
Making changes to your program
Note that if the change in staff/child ratio will result in an increase of your Under Three Capacity and/or Over-All Capacity, you will likely need local approvals.
You can make requests to change your program’s capacity starting now. However, no changes can take effect until the new regulations are officially in place.
To request a change, you can:
- Submit a notification of proposed change (online form)
- Use our generic licensing approval form (fillable PDF)
- Print out and submit a notification of change (standard PDF)
Once you submit, please be patient. We expect to be working through many of these requests.
Review our questions and answers page
We know that many programs are interested in being able to take advantage of the proposed ratio and group size requirements. To get more guidance, review our Q&A page.
if you have questions that aren’t covered, you can also contact your Licensing Specialist for further assistance.