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 VQ/B5 staff, which serves the eastern region. Our efforts focus primarily on recruiting centers to join VQ/B5 and ensure they are successful in their quality improvement journey. When Virginia Quality 2.0 launched in 2016, GrowSmart has worked hard to increase Virginia Beach program engagement. Our efforts have proven successful and we have seen an 80% increase in program engagement since 2017.
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 Practice Years of VQB5 will be able to:
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