The New Jersey DECE requires one certified teacher and one qualified teacher assistant for every class of 15 students. Instructional staff must must have a bachelor’s degree and a PK3 certificate. The certification process is completed through the Council for Professional Recognition for the Child Development Associate certificate. Alternate routes to teaching include an elementary school endorsement with the equivalent of two academic years of full-time teaching experience with three and four-year old children, or a standard New Jersey nursery school endorsement. All teacher assistants must have a high school diploma.
The DECE does not maintain a definitive standard for preschool curriculum. Instead, they support a variety of established standards, such as the Bank Street Development Approach, which is based on the theories of educators Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson, John Dewey and Lucy Sprague Mitchell and the Tools of the Mind project, a collaborative work between Russian and American education researchers. DECE has outlined a list of minimum outcomes that must be met and demonstrated using any of the teaching approaches listed on their website, but contains the option of adopting an approach of the school or instructional staff's choosing.
A variety of general standards are also outlined by the DECE. Some of these include the following: classroom size is limited to 15 students. A minimum of 950 square feet per classroom must be designated with at least 750 square feet of usable space. The district Board of Education must provide a nurse for every 300 preschool students. The Board of Education must also provide a community and parent involvement specialist (CPIS) with a Bachelor’s degree in social work or a related field, such as sociology, psychology or education.