Early Childhood Education: Supervision and Administration
Shaping the ECE classroom environment
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certificate Description
The Early Childhood Education Site Supervisor certificate program has been renamed to more accurately reflect the growing demand for leadership in the industry.
Head up your own ECE center
Running your own child care center or serving as a site supervisor for our youngest learners requires the vision of an entrepreneur, the skills of a manager, and the heart of a teacher.
In the Early Childhood Education: Supervision and Administration program, you'll learn best practices for recruiting, teacher training, and staff management while working toward your state child development site supervisor or program director permit.
You will learn to instill positive guidance and discipline into your curriculum for infants, toddlers, and young children.
The program is designed for students looking to complete requirements for the Child Development Site Supervisor Permit through the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, and for site directors seeking professional development to renew permits for licensed facilities.
Classroom curriculum
- Child growth and development
- Classroom teaching strategies
- Center management
- Creating a developmentally based curriculum
- Current industry research and trends
Leadership curriculum
The curriculum delivers targeted instruction to prepare you to become a successful child care owner and build your qualifications as a director. Gain the confidence to manage and run any child care center.
- Budget administration
- Facilities management
- Personnel recruitment—best practices
- Supervisory skills
Early Childhood Education: Supervision and Administration learning objectives
- Create optimal learning environments through efficient staff interactions with children and their families
- Identify the differences in major learning theories and curriculum models as they pertain to early childhood education center philosophies and use them to enhance and develop appropriate care and education at child care centers
- Apply effective communication with families, staff, and communities about the physical, cognitive, social, and emotional needs of children as a leader and director
- Identify high-quality settings for children using quality indicators such as the National Association for the Education of Young Children guidelines and standards and know what they are looking for as it pertains to getting child care centers licensing, permits, and regulations for the state of California
- Develop positive guidance and mentorship strategies to use when working with diverse groups of children including those with special needs
Program Overview
Estimated Cost: Starting at $2,760. (You pay only for courses you enroll in.) | International Tuition Cost
Program Requirements: 4 courses (20 quarter units). End with certificate of completion review.
Minimum Hours of Instruction: 200 hours of instruction.
Estimated Duration: A full-time student can complete the certificate in 9–12 months.
Special Programs: None
Courses
1. Required Course(s):
2. Completion Review:
Meet Our Instructors
Certificate Inquiry Form
Recommended Course Sequence
Flexible course sequence
Courses may be taken in any order provided the prerequisites are met.
Substitutions
To receive your certificate
Professional Development
Site Supervisor and Program Director credentialing
You must complete six semester units of coursework in administration and supervision of child care and development programs and two semester units in adult supervision to qualify for Site Supervisor and Program Director permits. Our courses help qualify you for these permits. Please go to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing to learn how to qualify for Site Supervisor and Program Director permits by taking our courses.
Please visit the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing for more information.
Licensure and Certification Policy
This is a mandatory licensure (permit) for this field of practice.
Please see our Licensure and Certification Policy to learn more.
Advisory Board
Certificate Program Chair
NINET MORADI, BA, MA, has more than 20 years of experience in the field of early childhood education. She is an early childhood education professional advisor with the California Child Development Training Consortium. She has run her own child care program and has worked as an administrator of many child care centers with different philosophies, programs, and settings. She has helped several state-funded, for-profit, and nonprofit programs obtain licensing and launch high-quality programs. Moradi has a Bachelor’s degree in Education and a Master’s degree in Psychology. She has a California Child Development Director permit, holds certificates in Computerized Bookkeeping and Child Trauma, and is completing an Applied Behavior Analysis program. She has volunteered as a court-appointed child advocate for many years and began teaching at UCSC Extension in 2014. She has served as chair of the Early Childhood Education: Supervision and Administration Certificate Program Advisory Board since 2021.
Certificate Program Advisory Committee
ALICIA ARIZMENDI, M.S.
TUPE Coordinator & Student Support Specialist, Morgan Hill Unified School District
ANGEL CHANG, M.Ed., PH.D.
Bilingual Educator and Researcher, Stanford University
Instructor, UCSC Silicon Valley Extension Early Childhood Education Program
MELISSA LE, B.A., MSTC
Instructor and Chair, Early Childhood Education: Associate Certificate Program, UCSC Silicon Valley Extension
NINET MORADI, M.A.
Instructor and Chair, UCSC Silicon Valley Extension Early Childhood Education: Supervision and Administration Program
NELL REDANIEL, CBEST
Lead Teacher, Bright Horizons
President and State Director, Santa Clara Valley Chapter of CAAEYC
ROBYN STONE, M.A.
Instructor, UCSC Silicon Valley Extension Early Childhood Education Program
Establish Candidacy
Who should establish candidacy?
- People who are pursuing a certificate (and have enrolled in a course in the program).
- People who want to lock in the current requirements of a certificate or specialization.
4 Simple Steps to a Certificate or Specialization
- Complete a course in your selected program.
- Establish candidacy. Click on the Establish Candidacy button on your program page.
- Take all required courses for certificate completion.
- Once your grades are posted on your final course, enroll in the certificate review fee.
A Benefit of Establishing Candidacy
Program requirements may change. Once you commit to a program by establish your candidacy, you will not have to change your plans to meet new requirements. They are locked in for you. Timeline: 4 years to get it done (or 3 for a specialization) You must complete all the necessary units in a certificate within a four-year window. The clock begins on the first day of your first course in the certificate program. For example, if you started a course on Sept. 5, 2023, you would have to finish by Sept. 4, 2027.
Note: Establishing candidacy does not trigger the beginning of the four-year window. It begins the first day of the first course in your chosen certificate program. The Certificate Completion Review process does not have to occur within the four-year timeframe.
Exceptions to the four-year requirement
- If you Established candidacy prior to Jan. 1, 2024, you will have five years to complete a program.
- Students participating in a special program, such as workforce, international, or our curriculum partner programs, such as the Legal Studies courses (CLS by Barbri) and sales and business courses (Ziplines Education) have shorter completion requirements.
Grade Requirements
Please note that only letter grades of C or higher may be applied to a certificate, and in some programs, students may have more stringent requirements. Students in most employer- and government-sponsored payment programs, such as workforce development, as well as international students on F-1 visas, need to maintain a B average to meet their requirements. Personal Financial Planning students have additional grade requirements for individual courses to attain a certificate.
See Grading and Credits Policy for further information.