The Quality Rated program was launched in January 2012 by Bright from the Start: Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL). This a systematic approach to evaluate, improve, and communicate the level of quality in early care programs in Georgia.
The Quality Rated program is managed by Bright from the Start: Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL). DECAL is responsible for meeting the child care needs of Georgia’s children and their families. The goal of Quality Rated is to increase the number of and access to high-quality early education and school-age care programs for Georgia’s children.
Why is Quality Rated important?
There is a growing body of research supporting the notion that the quality of care children receive in their child care environments significantly affects their physical, mental, and academic development. Findings from one study show that young children who attended higher quality early care and education programs had better language development, problem solving, and social skills.
With Quality Rated, parents and families are able to choose their child care with more confidence. This is because independent, credentialed experts in early education have evaluated whether programs follow best practices such as:
Having qualified, well-trained teachers and directors
Individualizing learning development to the child
Building partnerships with parents
Maintaining a low teacher-student ratio
What are Quality Rated requirements?
Programs earn points toward a Quality Rated star rating based on 5 standards.
Director and Teacher Qualifications and Georgia Professional Development System Verification
- ensuring programs hire and retain highly qualified staff and that they receive ongoing training
Child Health, Nutrition, and Physical Activity
- assessing program’s current health, safety, and nutrition standards followed by identifying areas of improvement and implementation plan
Family Engagement
- building strong partnerships with families to improve child development outcomes
Intentional Teaching Practices
- ensuring intentional teaching practices align curriculum with Georgia’s Early Learning and Development Standards (GELDS) or Georgia’s Afterschool and Youth Development Standards (ASYD)
Teacher: Student Ratio Requirements
- ensuring optimal teacher: student ratios in classrooms to maximize positive development of children
These five standards make up the structural quality of the childcare center. Process quality is also assessed for each program via an Environment Rating Scales (ERS) observation. This in-person visit evaluates the child care in action and observes children’s actual experiences during the day. Together, structural quality and process quality decide whether the child care is one, two, or three stars.
HiMama + Georgia’s Quality Rated
Numerous early childhood programs in Georgia use HiMama in their licensed child care facilities to meet expectations set out by Quality Rated. How your center chooses to use HiMama will vary based on the unique circumstances of your community, families, educators and attending children. However, we’ve provided some guidance on how HiMama will assist your early childhood program in meeting the expectations set out by Quality Rated.
KEY AREAS
REQUIREMENTS
3 STAR LEVEL
HIMAMA APPLICATION
Director & Teacher Qualifications and Georgia Professional Development System Verification
Programs hire and retain highly qualified staff and that they receive ongoing training.
Staff qualifications meet the highest Career Level criteria set out by the Georgia Professional Development System
Directors & staff continuously participate in professional growth and development activities
Increased annual hours of training
Increase retention of high-level staff through teacher empowerment
Staff is applying mobile technology in the classroom to better align with expectations of the families
Provides professional growth and development activities, through numerous HiMama resources, including weekly blog articles, weekly podcasts for leaders in early childhood education, white papers and reports
Components of staff performance can be evaluated through the HiMama app, including classroom documentation quality and interactions with families
Child Health, Nutrition, and Physical Activity
Assessment of program’s current health, safety, and nutrition standards followed by identifying areas of improvement and implementation plan.
Conducted Nutrition & Physical Activity Self Assessment and developed a written improvement plan addressing the two domains
Encourage families to submit vision, hearing, nutrition, and dental screenings
Children’s health and well-being is tracked through the HiMama app, including illnesses and injuries
Easily plan menus and weekly lesson plans (based on developmental domains)
Easily add health notes (e.g. allergies), immunization records, as well as any other health records/documents to each child’s online profile
Family Engagement
Building strong partnerships with families to improve child development outcomes.
Completed training on benefits of family engagement and communication
Conducted the Family Engagement Self Assessment and developed a written improvement plan
Developed policies and practices in place to address family engagement
HiMama enables early childhood programs to connect parents with the classroom by inviting them to participate in children’s experiences and in turn build all around trusting partnerships
Parents receive automatic individual updates and reports about their child’s experience and development in the early childhood program, including assessments to reflect on a child’s readiness for transitions to new programs or into school age programs
HiMama has created a parent handbook template that includes risk management strategies and communication plans
Intentional Teaching Practices
Intentional teaching practices align curriculum with Georgia’s Early Learning and Development Standards (GELDS) or Georgia’s Afterschool and Youth Development Standards (ASYD).
Use age appropriate curriculum that supports development across all 5 learning domains (physical development & motor skills, social & emotional development, approaches to play and learning, language & literacy, and cognitive development)
Curriculum is aligned with GELDS
Adapt lesson plans to meet children’s individual needs
Gather instructional assessment data to measure child outcomes
GELDS is accessible for child care and early learning programs directly through the HiMama app, enabling assistance with lesson planning, developmental observations, online portfolios and development reports
HiMama electronic portfolios and development assessment reports can be shared with parents on an as-needed basis or by the schedule set by the early learning center / program
Visual documentation of classroom activities assists in evaluation of classroom setup and learning activities
Assess gaps in programming across learning domains
Environment Rating Scales (ERS) Observation
An assessment of process quality; things that children actually experience that directly affects their development.
Observations include interactions that occur in the classroom between staff and children, among children themselves, and among staff, families, and other adults
Also evaluates interactions children have with the materials and activities in the environment
The HiMama application saves on average 5 hours per teacher per week. Therefore, teachers can dedicate more time to observing and promoting interactions in the classroom that spur developmental growth for children.
Intuitive lesson planning features empower teachers to be organized and follow through on their lesson plans to maximize children’s learning experiences.
How do I find the closest Quality Rated program?
To find a Quality Rated program near you, a parent or caregiver can visit Georgia’s DECAL website.
HiMama makes documentation and reporting of children’s learning and development in alignment with Georgia Early Learning and Development quick and easy so that educators can spend less time on documentation and paperwork and more time with children.
Learn how HiMama can help you align to Georgia's quality guidelines without all the paperwork and late nights.
What is Georgia’s Quality Rated Child Care?
What is Georgia’s Quality Rated Child Care?
February 10, 2017 | By Tom Tu
The Quality Rated program is managed by Bright from the Start: Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL). DECAL is responsible for meeting the child care needs of Georgia’s children and their families. The goal of Quality Rated is to increase the number of and access to high-quality early education and school-age care programs for Georgia’s children.
Why is Quality Rated important?
There is a growing body of research supporting the notion that the quality of care children receive in their child care environments significantly affects their physical, mental, and academic development. Findings from one study show that young children who attended higher quality early care and education programs had better language development, problem solving, and social skills.
With Quality Rated, parents and families are able to choose their child care with more confidence. This is because independent, credentialed experts in early education have evaluated whether programs follow best practices such as:
What are Quality Rated requirements?
Programs earn points toward a Quality Rated star rating based on 5 standards.
These five standards make up the structural quality of the childcare center. Process quality is also assessed for each program via an Environment Rating Scales (ERS) observation. This in-person visit evaluates the child care in action and observes children’s actual experiences during the day. Together, structural quality and process quality decide whether the child care is one, two, or three stars.
HiMama + Georgia’s Quality Rated
Numerous early childhood programs in Georgia use HiMama in their licensed child care facilities to meet expectations set out by Quality Rated. How your center chooses to use HiMama will vary based on the unique circumstances of your community, families, educators and attending children. However, we’ve provided some guidance on how HiMama will assist your early childhood program in meeting the expectations set out by Quality Rated.
How do I find the closest Quality Rated program?
To find a Quality Rated program near you, a parent or caregiver can visit Georgia’s DECAL website.
HiMama makes documentation and reporting of children’s learning and development in alignment with Georgia Early Learning and Development quick and easy so that educators can spend less time on documentation and paperwork and more time with children. Learn how HiMama can help you align to Georgia's quality guidelines without all the paperwork and late nights.
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