All parents want what’s best for their children. But they’re often faced with a grueling search and difficult choices when it comes to making child care and preschool arrangements. Families with young children deal with an array of different early care and learning programs: some in center-based programs that include preschools, nursery schools, child care centers, Head Start programs and school Pre-K programs, and others in smaller, home-based situations such as family child care, nannies and au pairs. Each setting has its own standards, procedures and policies that make finding a suitable program very complicated. It’s hard to get assurances that any of these programs deliver the high-quality services that build healthy brains and bodies and that lead to success in school.  

Twenty states have responded with a clever way to help parents navigate the system, and sometime next year, New York State will also adopt this solution.  Known as quality rating and improvement systems—to be called QualitystarsNY here—it’s essentially a Zagats for child care: experts come into each program and give them one to five stars based on their levels of quality.  The star rating is prominently displayed on the wall for all to see.  Star ratings are listed on the websites of the states’ child and family service offices and the local child care resource and referral agencies.   QualitystarsNY will offer families an easy-to-understand way to judge the relative quality of different programs for their children, so that whatever type of program is deemed best for the child, a parent will have a sense of its level of quality.

What a Program Should Look Like
Program quality will be examined in terms of the quality of the learning environment, which is the curriculum and activities that the children will be engaged in; the qualifications and experience of the teachers; the management and leadership of the program; and, finally, family engagement, how well informed are parents and caregivers about the program and their child’s progress, and how involved are parents in classroom activities and in decision-making.  QualitystarsNY will provide ample opportunity for parents to become more involved in their child’s early childhood experiences and learn about ways to reinforce at home what goes on in child care.
           
An exciting part of QualitystarsNY is that programs will receive funding to improve. They’ll receive free training and technical assistance to help improve quality, and what might start out as a two-star program could become a three-star program over the course of a year.  The hope is that QUALITYstarsNY will give the 1.5 million New Yorkers under the age of six opportunities for high-quality early learning experiences. Ultimately, this system can eliminate the school readiness gap by improving early learning for all children and increasing access for low-income children to higher quality programs. 

Find What Meets Your Needs
QualitystarsNY is currently being field-tested and the final design is expected in 2011, when it’s hoped that Governor Cuomo and the state legislature will find the funds to implement it.  Parents can follow the development of QUALITYstarsNY at www.earlychildhood.org/QSNY.
           
While we await the launch of QUALITYstarsNY, parents can call the Child Care Council of Nassau at 516-358-9250 or the Child Care Council of Suffolk at 631-462-0444 and speak to a parent counselor who can explain the difference among various program options.  They can provide a list of possible choices based on where you live, the hours you need care, the fees you can afford, and the special needs of your child.  You can also look at the list of programs on the councils’ websites:  www.childcarenassau.org and www.childcaresuffolk.org.  Questions posted there cover a range of things you should know before selecting a program.  You should then call, visit and verify that the program meets your needs and that there’s an opening for your child.  A selection of these questions is included below along with the reasons why they’re important. And even after QualitystarsNY is in place, it’s always important for parents to use their gut to decide what’s best for their child.  Parents will always know best.

Dana E. Friedman, Ed.D., is president of The Early Years Institute in Plainview.

Things to look for when you visit: Is the facility cheerful? Appealing? Clean? Do caregivers pay individual attention to children? Do caregivers speak with children at eye level? Do caregivers participate in play – or are they standing to the side talking to each other? Is there a variety of age-appropriate toys, books and equipment? Do children seem happy? Questions to ask yourself: Am I comfortable with the caregiver, program and facility? Do I trust this person to care for my child? Do the rules seem reasonable and clear? Am I happy with the type and variety of activities? Am I satisfied with what I heard from other parents? If I were a child, would I enjoy spending time here?