Quality child care is essential to the safety, healthy development and school readiness of children. It is an important support for our current workforce but also has a unique opportunity to support the development of our future workforce.

Virginia has launched a new unified quality rating system for private and public early learning programs, called VQB5. VQB5 is a measurement and improvement system that focuses on the quality of all publicly-funded birth-five classrooms and supports families to choose quality programming across different program types. VQB5 sets shared expectations for measuring quality and supporting teachers for all birth to five programs. Through VQB5, teachers and leaders will receive the feedback and support they need to help young children learn.

One of GrowSmart’s strategic goals is to connect providers to the VQB5 system and support their growth in quality improvement. We collaborate with VQB5 and Ready Regions Southeastern to support quality growth. Our efforts focus primarily on supporting programs in their quality improvement journey.  

Previously, 35% of our licensed child care centers were engaged in Virginia Quality. Our goal is to support currently engaged centers to transition with ease to the new VQB5 system and also engage more programs to join the quality rating and improvement system.  

VQB5 will measure the quality of infant, toddler and preschool teaching and learning based on two nationally-recognized quality indicators: Interactions and Curriculum.  An important feature of VQB5 is that measurement and improvement are connected and ongoing. VQB5 programs have many opportunities to reflect on their progress during the year using a continuous quality improvement cycle.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS TO PARTICIPATING IN VQB5?

Programs that participate in  VQB5 will be able to:

• Receive feedback on the teacher-child interactions in every infant, toddler and preschool classroom, including family day homes

• Access improvement supports, training and resources to support interactions and curriculum.

• Receive financial incentives for participation for certain eligible teachers through RecognizeB5.

To participate in VQB5, contact your local Ready Region.

Other questions or feedback can be send to vqb5@doe.virginia.gov

If you are a center director interested in participating in VQB5, please contact Kristen Carter, the Hampton Roads PDG and MDG Specialist with Ready Region Southeastern VA

Kristen Carter:  Office: (757) 446-7248  Email:  CarterKJ@evms.edu  Website:  www.minus9to5.org