Inside the Law: Quality Rating System Coming to Ga. Day Care Centers
NewsCentral Staff
Story Created:
Mar 26, 2012 at 8:28 PM EDT
Story Updated:
Mar 26, 2012 at 10:47 PM EDT
Next year, the state of Georgia is scheduled to start publishing quality ratings for its day care centers.
Much like restaurants or hotels, parents can soon choose day care centers based on their ratings.
“We want this to educate our parents to let them know we want high quality for them,” says Meadowdale Learning Center Owner Donna Williams.
The learning center in Perry is one of almost 600 out of 6,700 of the state’s daycare centers that have signed up for the voluntary quality rating system which will be based on things like learning curricula and health.
“They will look at safety and hygiene practices in the facility. They will also look at what are we doing with parents. What type of parent engagement activities do we have?” Says Williams.
The quality rating system is modeled after a similar program in the state of North Carolina which uses a 5-tier rating.
After North Carolina saw day care center improvements sky rocket, Georgia is hoping to reap in some of those benefits from doing the same.
“The state of Georgia does want to improve child care quality. We have savvy parents today they come in the door asking for these types of credentials, asking what are our staff-child ratios in our program. So they can go to bright from the start through the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning and look and see the name of the center, what their past evaluations are, and how well they’ve done when their consultant comes out and reviews them,” says Williams.
A centers first assessment will not be published but parents will be able to see them after the first year.
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