Director of Child Care Health and Safety (Program Manager Senior II)

About the role

This position provides statewide leadership, regulatory oversight, and expert guidance to ensure that all Maryland children—birth through age five, and school-age children through 13—have access to safe, healthy, and high-quality early childhood and school-age programs.

Responsibilities

• Reports to the Executive Director for Child Care Operations, leading Maryland’s child care licensing system, including standards development, investigations, monitoring, enforcement, technical assistance, and operational quality assurance for public, private, and in-home child care programs and nursery schools.
• Leads the ongoing review and modernization of Maryland’s child care licensing regulatory (COMAR) framework and efforts to improve the efficiency of Maryland’s child care licensing system, using continuous quality improvement approaches.
• Ensures alignment of child care licensing functions across Maryland’s early childhood mixed delivery system, including aligning with the Child Care Scholarship (CCS) program.
• Directs, manages, and oversees Maryland’s Child Care Licensing System, Regulatory Compliance, and Licensing System Modernization.
• Provides strategic leadership and statewide oversight for all licensing functions to ensure compliance with COMAR, state/federal law, and MSDE’s strategic plan, and leads statewide implementation of recommendations emerging from implementation of HB 477, including improvements to transparency, workflow modernization, and customer service standards.
• Directs modernization of licensing regulations to ensure clarity, equity, legal soundness, and alignment with national licensing best practices (e.g., health and safety standards, differential monitoring, enhanced transparency).
• Ensures statewide consistency in interpreting and applying COMAR and state policy by establishing SOPs, clear expectations, correcting legacy inconsistencies, and implementing continuous quality-improvement mechanisms.
• Develops and directs statewide monitoring, investigation, and enforcement protocols, ensuring all regional offices apply standards consistently and maintain timely, complete documentation.
• Supervises 10-15 regional managers and central office leadership, ensuring alignment with MSDE expectations, consistent statewide interpretation and implementation of licensing regulations and procedures, and supervises the Criminal Background Check (CBC) Unit ensuring consistent workflow, adherence to statutory requirements, and staff training on criminal history record check processes.
• Oversees coordination with health, safety, and investigative partners (Health, Fire Marshal, CPS, DSS, law enforcement, local government) to ensure consistent child safety protocols and aligned responses to incidents.
• Responds to high-level inquiries from MSDE leadership, the State Superintendent, State Board of Education, Governor’s Office, legislators, and external entities and prepares reports, legislative analyses, and updates.
• Represents MSDE on workgroups, committees, councils, hearings, and interagency task forces related to child safety, licensing, and regulatory modernization.

Requirements

• A Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent 36-post baccalaureate credit hours of course work in Public Administration, Education, Administration/Supervision, Early Childhood, Social Work or a closely related field.
• Five years of professional administrative experience in management, administration, supervision, and/or policy development of Child Care - Early Learning Programs, one year of the required experience must have been managing the regulatory aspects of a Child Care program.
• Note: Possession of a Master’s Degree may be substituted for two years of the required administrative experience.
• Experience coordinating or administering child care programs or services, child care facility health or related field is preferred.
• Experience with the interpretation and application of State and federal statutes, regulations, funding, and policies governing and supporting programs and services for child care programs, child care licensure, and health and safety requirements.
• Experience with Centralized Criminal Background Checks (CBC) established under SB 359/HB 635 (Chapter 361, 2026) and criminal history records checks (CHRCs) for applicants, staff, and individuals requiring background.
• Experience supervising staff and managing multiple administrative activities including oversight and evaluation of staff.
• Experience with establishing resolution to complex provider, family, and stakeholder complaints that impact child safety and involve regulatory interpretation.
• Candidates must consent to State and FBI (CJIS) background check as a routine procedure for all employees.

Qualifications

Please include clear and specific information on your application regarding your qualifications.

Skills

Not specified

Benefits

Not specified

Pay

Not specified

Schedule

Not specified