
Early Childhood Education: Site Supervisor
Shaping the ECE classroom environment
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Certificate Description
Head up your own ECE center
Running your own daycare 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 ECE Site Supervisor 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 developmentally based curriculum
- Current industry research and trends
Leadership curriculum
The curriculum delivers targeted instruction to prepare you to become a successful daycare owner and build your qualifications as a director. Gain the confidence to manage and run any daycare center.
- Budget administration
- Facilities management
- Personnel recruitment—best practices
- Supervisory skills
Early Childhood Education: Site Supervisor 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 it pertains to early childhood education center philosophies and use it to enhance and develop appropriate care and education at childcare 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 childcare 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:
3. Related Course(s): These Courses Are Not Part of The Certificate Program
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: Site Supervisor 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 Programs
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
Establish candidacy in a certificate or specialization
Once you create your student account, you can establish candidacy in a certificate or specialization program any time during your studies.
The benefits of enrolling early
- Lock in your certificate requirements.This means that even if program requirements change, the requirements to complete your certificate will remain the same for you
- Receive program updates
- Set your intention
- It’s free
To complete a program, you must enroll in the certificate program before enrolling in the Certificate Completion Review.
You have five years to complete all necessary courses in a certificate program or three years to finish up a specialization program.
All the necessary units in a certificate must be completed within this 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, 2017, you would have to complete all of the required units in this certificate by Sept. 4, 2022.
Note:
Enrolling in a certificate program does not trigger the beginning of the five-year window. It begins the first day of the first course that applies to a certificate program. The Certificate Completion Review process does not have to occur within the five-year timeframe.
For more information: How do I get my certificate or specialization?
* Students participating in a special program, such as workforce, international, Personal Financial Planning, or curriculum partner programs (such as GreenFig or CLS by Barbri) may have a shorter completion requirement.
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.