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Earning NAEYC Accreditation
Congratulations to My Kids Choice Child Care Center and Preschool in Meridian for their hard work towards NAEYC accreditation. Accreditation represents the mark of quality in early childhood education and child care. Your hard work to achieve accreditation gives families the chance to make the right choice for their child's early education program. Thank you for your dedication to quality early learning experiences for Idaho's youngest learners.
NAEYC accredited programs invest in early childhood education because they believe in the benefits to children and families. To earn accreditation, programs must meet all 10 NAEYC standards. This process is no small feat. Idaho's accredited programs deserve a round of applause for their dedication to providing high quality early childhood education for Idaho's families.
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Let's Move! Idaho Child Care
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 When parents are busy at work all day, child care providers play a crucial role in maintaining a child's health and well being. That's why the Blue Cross of Idaho Foundation for Health and the Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children (Idaho AEYC) have teamed up to provide Boise-area child care providers with a series of free educational workshops. The most recent Let's Move! Child Care Workshops were also sponsored by local health food suppliers the Boise Co-Op and Albertson's. Last month, the National League of Cities visited Boise to observe our Let's Move! Child Care workshops. Close to three dozen child care providers from across the Treasure Valley participated in year's workshop. At several points during the six-hour sessions, participants had to get out of their seats. Tracy Wiedt, program manager for the National League of Cities, said one of the reasons for her trip to Boise was because the city could "without a doubt" be a model for others. Boise is one of the first cities in the nation to implement comprehensive child care provider workshops free of cost to the providers. The workshops aim to improve healthy eating and active living with our young children. The National League of Cities ranks Boise as number five of more than 400 cities for keeping kids active and eating right. Child care providers do not have to be in Boise to benefit from the information and training in health and nutrition offered through Let's Move! Child Care Trainings. Visit Let's Move! Child Care to learn how you can improve your program today! |
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Improving Boise Child Care
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 Did you know that the struggle against obesity can last a lifetime? Obese children are more likely to become obese adults and to suffer from health conditions such as heart disease and diabetes. Early care and education providers play an important role in supporting Idaho's children to make healthy choices during their early years and decrease future health risks. The City of Boise is currently exploring a set of proposed changes to the City's child care ordinance aimed at improving health and reducing childhood obesity. Proposed by Council member TJ Thomson, Boise Healthy Child Care Initiatives would establish benchmarks for nutrition, the amount of daily physical activity, and the amount of screen time that children receive each day while in the care of a city-licensed child care facility. The ordinance would also establish that space be provided onsite for infant nursing. Research shows these are the principal drivers of childhood obesity. Idaho AEYC is working closely with the City and Central District Health Department on these initiatives.
The City recently held open houses about the proposed law. Between 60 and 70 child-care providers attended those open houses, with most showing support for the standards. After receiving this feedback, the Boise City Council voted on April 22 to draft a law of the initiatives.
If approved, implementation of the new requirements would be done primarily through training and education. While healthy initiatives training would be a requirement for licensing, any facility that doesn't comply with a healthy initiative would not be cited. However, lack of compliance will be noted on the city's online child care provider list so that parents can easily determine which local providers are using the new guidelines. To learn more, visit the City of Boise Child Care Licensing Page. |
The celebration of Week of the Young Child (April 6-12) was a time for our community to come together and recognize the importance and impact of safe, healthy learning environments, support early learning initiatives, and thank the teachers and caregivers who work with our children.
Honoring quality early care and education means honoring and appreciating the early childhood teachers who are at the heart of quality early learning. Local affiliates engaged in many WOYC events including accredited program tours, day in the parks, open houses, and tours of quality centers.
Idaho AEYC drove a very successful Week of the Young Child Auction. Support from community members like you, is vital to continue our efforts in improving the quality of child care and increasing access for working families to early education in Idaho. The Idaho AEYC online auction was a huge success and raised over $3,000!
Thank you to all our donors and all who participated in this auction!
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Stick Your Neck Out for Idaho's Children 2014
 The Stick Your Neck Out for Idaho's Children Awards are coming up! These awards are presented to individuals who have demonstrated a strong commitment and contributed a positive impact in quality early care and education throughout Idaho. This year, four honorees will receive this award based on their contributions in the field of child care and early education.
This year's awards will be held at Zoo Boise. We hope that you will join us for an evening of food, drinks and celebration. Funds generated from this event will help Idaho AEYC work to improve the quality of child care and early education throughout Idaho. More information will be coming soon!
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Welcome Lily!
Taking over the position of Professional Development System Data Assistant, Idaho AEYC welcomes Lily Hursh. Lily is an Idaho native and enjoys all this state has to offer. She spent 12 years as an early childhood educator for Kids Are Special People, a nationally accredited center in downtown Boise. During this time she had the opportunity to work with children of varying ages. However, she devoted the majority of her time to their looping program as a lead teacher, working directly with ages 0-3. She was offered a job with the Department of Education in 2012. She went on to work for the department, in the Certification Unit, for nearly 2 years.
Lily is very excited to get back to her roots in ECE as a part of the Idaho AEYC. Lily is very familiar with the Idaho Stars project as she has been a part of the PDS since 2007. Children and education are truly her passion! She is proud to say she gets to be a part of Idaho AEYC and all that it is working to achieve with the devoted child care providers and programs of Idaho. It has been truly amazing to see this program grow and to see the positive impacts it has made on our community and for our little ones.
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