Quality Tips by Pam Schaffner  The assessment team in PA is often asked if they have any tips to make meeting quality standards easier. Since they have experiences visiting many programs in their professional careers, they have seen many programs employ strategies to make things easier, more efficient, and more effective. Implementing quality can be...Read More

By: Kitty Syster Are you tired of making the same lunches over and over? If you participate in the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), you know how important it is to provide nutritious, well balanced meals for the children in your care. But sometimes it can be difficult to create new lunch and...Read More

Ancient proverb: A wise man builds a house by digging down deep and laying the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. One who is unwise builds a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck...Read More

Jill Kortwright The Program Quality Assessment (PQA) team is excited to welcome All About the ECERS-3 to our library of resources. If you’ve attended an Environment Rating Scale (ERS) professional development event, you’ve probably heard about All About the ITERS-R and All About the ECERS-R. These companion resources support the use of the ERS for...Read More

How did the Environment Rating Scales evolve? The family of Environment Rating Scales (ECERS, ITERS, FCCERS, & SACERS) initially grew out of my many years of experience teaching in different types of Early Childhood Education programs including as a Family Child Care provider, Parent CO-OP Preschool Teacher, Head Start teacher, Head Teacher of the four...Read More

By Michelle Mallonee Long When the Program Quality Assessor provides the four-week window for your facility’s assessments, you are allowed to select up to four black-out dates (days the assessor will not show up for a visit). The assessors need to see a typical day in the classroom (what the children experience on a regular...Read More

Happy New Year!! I can’t think of a better way to kick off 2017 than with the launch of “Let’s Talk Quality! Program Quality Assessment in PA!”Read More