System Change

• Incentivize child care centers to focus on children age 0 to 2, and then help those centers to systematize as a pipeline for public Pre-K with 3 and 4 year olds
• Partner with Pre-K centers to build a common level of quality and culture
• For the purpose of highlighting the issue, generate a white paper that describes the cost gap/inequality between the rate of ECE reimbursement and the cost of accreditation
• As a city and county, determine a new, widely-recognized title for accredited teachers to distinguish their level of credentials

Funding

• Provide access to training for ECE Directors and ECE teachers
• Provide support and incentives for centers to progress towards accreditation

Other

• Implement a CDA certification program at the high school level as a career path
• Increase parent/caregivers knowledge of ECE through YELP-type reviews of child care centers
• Initiate a mentorship/service-learning opportunity with Texas Rising Stars and the community college system that includes a residency opportunity for students
• Create a standard definition of what is meant by quality across RKSA partners and providers across the City
• Create a Mayor’s Taskforce for quality childcare

Participation in high-quality early childhood care and education programs can have positive effects on children’s cognitive, language, and social development, particularly among children at risk for poor outcomes. Quality is an important element of programs that have had strong impacts. High-quality programs do not just meet the basic needs of children, but also provide opportunities for meaningful learning activities and language development, and work to foster close, caring relationships between children and their teachers/caregivers. (Child Trends Databank, 2016)

This indicator includes all non-military child care center and home facilities licensed by the Child Care Licensing (CCL) division of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS). To be accredited, a child care center must hold one or more accreditations recognized by the Texas Workforce Commission. The recognized accrediting bodies are: National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), National Early Childhood Program Accreditation (NECPA), National Accreditation Commission for Early Care and Education Program, Association of Christian Schools International, National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC), Council of Accreditation (formerly the National After School Association), and AdvancED Quality Early Learning Schools (QELS).

Source: Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, 2010-2015. Workforce Solutions Alamo, 2016. *2016 number of licensed facilities and licensed capacity are estimated as the number of facilities and capacity as December 2016. These data are included as an estimate until DFPS’s official 2016 data are released in 2017. Note: December 2015 and January 2016 accreditation data are known to be incomplete. The facilities accredited by TRS when rule changes were made in September 2015 were grandfathered through February 2016.

All quantitative data and narrative related to the data on this page was prepared by CI NOW for ReadyKidSA.

Bexar County, December 2016