Parents Encouraged to Look for the Stars
Novembr 13, 2008 – Thanks to the new Look for the Stars program, officially announced by community leaders on November 13th , parents of Sarasota County now have an additional resource for finding quality child care. Look for the Stars measures quality in early education programming and child care environments and will help parents make informed choices when selecting care for their children. Based on a 5 star system, Look for the Stars is designed with the ultimate goal of promoting excellent early child care and education for the children of Sarasota County.
Currently, 133 local providers have been assigned provisional star levels from 1 to 5 based on the scores they received during an evaluation by an independent assessor. A site receiving three or more stars is recognized for providing and maintaining high levels of quality child care. Programs receiving 2 stars are recognized for providing quality above state licensing requirements and have demonstrated that they are actively taking steps to improve quality. A list of participating providers and their provisional star levels can be found on the Web site at www.lookforthestars.org .
Overall, the participating child care programs received high scores on the interaction portion of the evaluation. Interaction between teachers and children is very important as it is directly related to social and emotional development and considered crucial in providing quality early child care and education.
Additionally, a high percentage of sites scored well on the program structure and language and reasoning portions of the evaluation.
“The child care providers who have volunteered to participate in the Look for the Stars program are fully committed to quality care and actively engaged in the ongoing improvement process. These
providers are on board and in support of early learning environments for the children of Sarasota County. The results of the assessment show that the majority of participating sites are already providing care
above and beyond the basic licensing requirements and that the staff and providers are truly committed to developing and maintaining the best child care standards possible,” stated Janet Kahn, executive director of the Early Learning Coalition of Sarasota County.
Look for the Stars is administered by the Early Learning Coalition of Sarasota County and is made possible through a generous challenge grant of nearly $1 million from Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice. Additional community partners have provided major financial support including the United Way of Sarasota County, Wachovia Foundation, Sarasota County Government, the Early Learning Coalition of Sarasota County, Sarasota County School Board, and the Sarasota Partnership for Children's Mental Health.
“Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice is very pleased to be a part of this community-wide initiative. It’s gratifying to see so many different early learning stakeholders coming together cooperatively for a single cause. This collaborative effort will positively impact our community’s overall child care system – in addition to individual provider sites,” stated Mike Bigner, Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice’s chief consultant to the project.
Sarasota County’s Quality Improvement System was developed by a coalition of community partners. These partners represent 13 organizations and financial supporters – each dedicated to a comprehensive and sustainable system of quality improvement for early childhood education and development.
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