The ECAC welcomes these four early childhood leaders to the membership and looks forward to working with them to advance the early childhood agenda in New York State! 

 QUALITYstarsNY Implementation Moves Forward

QUALITYstarsNY Pools Support from Multiple Funders 

 Through multiple sources of funding, the ECAC has begun imlementation of  QUALITYstarsNY. The largest funder, the State Education Department, has contributed $4 Million through the Race to the Top initiative. The funds will be used to support the full participation of programs and providers in areas of the state with high priority school districts (Syracuse, Rochester, Capital District, Yonkers, Poughkeepsie, Bronx, Brooklyn, and Roosevelt). In addition, the Rauch Foundation is supporting sites in two communities on Long Island and the ECAC is funding the full participation of programs that participated in the field test. Finally, The Office of Children and Family Services continues to support QUALITYstarsNY by funding QUALITY Scholars, to help increase program quality by advancing staff professional development.

Recruitment and Selection News 

• Over 400 center-based programs and family home providers were notified in late July of their selection to participate in QUALITYstarsNY. That list will be posted soon on the QUALITYstarsNY website.
  Approximately 1/3 of those selected are family-based and 2/3 are center-based providers.
• School-based programs will be recruited in the fall.
• Majority of the regions met or exceeded the targeted number of programs and providers.
• Five new Quality Improvement Specialists have been hired, bringing the total number to 11. The Quality Improvement Specialists will be responsible for conducting orientation sessions for the selected programs and providers starting in August.
• Suzanne Dome has been hired as the Assessment Coordinator. She will recruit and train Environment Rating Scale observers for QUALITYstarsNY.

  QUALITYstarsNY Standards Development Continues

• Points have been incorporated into the two sets of program quality standards (centers and homes); both are available on the QUALITYstarsNY website.
• Ola Friday, QUALITYstarsNY Coordinator, has been working with a subgroup on documentation requirements for meeting the standards.
• The draft school age child care standards are ready to present to the Quality Improvement Work Group for their endorsement.
• Ariel Davis, QUALITYstarsNY Project Associate, is working on an online Resource Guide tied to the standards, incorporating the responses from the online form that is is described below.  

 QUALITYstarsNY  Solicits Contributions to Resource Guide....  

As a supplement to the standards, QUALITYstarsNY is creating a Resource Guide to assist programs and providers through the standard's self-study and completion processes. The idea behind the Guide is that if programs or providers have questions about what is expected by the various standards, they will be able to quickly link to resources to gain a deeper understanding.

Help us to support all programs and providers to meet QUALITYstarsNY standards by identifying the materials and resources that you use to inform your program's best practices. 

To go to the resource collection survey, Click here.

...and to Cultural Competence Survey

With technical assistance provided by the BUILD Initiative, a subgroup of the QualityImprovement Work Group is developing a strategic plan that provides next steps for the implementation of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) Pathways to Cultural Competence Toolkit in QUALITYstarsNY and addresses the need for broader cultural competence supports for early care and education programs.

We want your input! Ola Friday, QUALITYstarsNY Coordinator and chair of the Cultural Competence Project, is gathering information from a wide array of early childhood stakeholders about cultural competence within their organizations. She is compiling this information to learn how cultural competency is understood and implemented in organizations/agencies around the state. Survey results will form the basis for a discussion at the September ECAC Membership meeting that will help lay the foundation for how sensitivity to culture can be assured in QUALITYstarsNY implementation.  

Please take a few moments to complete this survey.The deadline is

August 20th. http://bitly.com/CulturalCompetence

Quality Improvement Work Group

Welcomes New Co-Chairs

The ECAC welcomes Marsha Basloe, Executive Director of the Early Care & Learning Council, and Lynnette Pannucci, Associate in Instructional Services at the New York State Education Department Office of Early Learning, as the new co-chairs of the Quality Improvement Work Group, which plays a critical role in efforts to move QUALITYstarsNY forward. 

A big thank you to the former co-chairs, who have given generously of their time to lead the work group up to this point:  Janice Molnar, Office of Children and Family Services Division of Child Care Services; Anne Mitchell, Early Childhood Policy Research; and Meg McNiff,  New York State Education Department Office of Early Learning. 

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 Marsha Basloe, ECAC Member and Co-chair of the Quality Improvement Work Group, and Executive Director of he Early Care & Learning Council, is proud to report that her agency is the 3rd state network in the country to earn the distinction of "Quality Assured" from  Child Care Aware of America (formerly NACCRRA) Quality Assurance. NACCRRA is a voluntary, national certification program for the field of Child Care Resource and Referral, including local CCR&Rs and State Networks. The validation process guides CCR&Rs and State Networks toward continuous quality assurance and excellence in service delivery.