Licensing visit checklist

Pick your sample

Choose five children and three employees the way an inspector would: at random, across rooms and ages. Include your newest enrollment, your newest hire and one infant if you have an infant room. Then go through each file.

For each child

• Admission or enrollment form, complete, with the admission date
• Parent or guardian signature and date on every form that needs one
• Center or director signature where the form requires it
• Immunization record, current for the child's age, or a valid exemption on file
• Health statement from a health-care professional, within the required period
• Hearing and vision screening, where your state requires it by age
• Emergency contacts and emergency medical authorization
• List of people authorized to pick up the child
• Allergy or medical action plan, if the child has one, and it matches what the classroom has
• Permissions: field trips, water play, sunscreen, photos, transportation, as applicable
• Infant-specific forms, such as feeding instructions and safe-sleep acknowledgments
• Signed acknowledgment of your operational policies or parent handbook
• The current version of each form, not a superseded one

For each employee

• Application and proof of age and education or qualifications for the role
• Background check: date cleared, and renewal not overdue
• Notarized affidavit or sworn statement, where your state requires one, with every page
• Pre-service training completed before working with children
• Annual training hours for the current year, each with a certificate
• Pediatric first aid and CPR, current, for the required number of staff
• Signed orientation to your center's policies
• Health statement or TB screening, where required
• Job description and date of hire

Around the building

• Today's sign-in and sign-out record for every room, complete
• Staff-to-child ratio met in every room, right now
• Posted items: license, menu, emergency plans, evacuation routes
• Fire and emergency drill log up to date
• Incident and medication logs complete, with parent acknowledgment

Stay ready all year

1. Keep an expiry calendar. CPR cards, background checks, health statements and annual forms all lapse on different dates. Look 90 days ahead.
2. Remind early and twice. Tell the employee or parent 60 days and 30 days ahead, not the week before.
3. Close gaps the day you find them. A missing signature is a two-minute fix today and a citation next month.
4. Sample your own files monthly. Five children, three employees, this checklist.
5. Know where everything is. If only one person can find a document, you are one sick day from a bad visit.