Pennsylvania

18 of 124 child care centers have STARS rating in Franklin

By NICK KENNEDY Staff writer
Chambersburg Public Opinion

Out of the 124 certified child care providers in Franklin County, only 18 have a rating from Pennsylvania's Keystone STARS program.

Even among those with a rating, all but one center is in the STAR 1 category.

"It's not that they're not trying," said Marci Place, program director for the Child Care Information Services of Adams, Franklin and Fulton counties. "[The program] is looking for a lot more hours of training for the directors and the workers. Sometimes that's hard to get when your center is open all the time. It also takes money to go to training. Scholarships are offered, but they are limited."

The Keystone STARS program was created in 2002. Since then, the voluntary program and has measured the performance standards of child care providers on the basis of staff education, environment, leadership and family and community partnerships.

According the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, the program is designed to provide "a continuous quality improvement program," along with offering parents "the security of knowing what to expect."

But local child care centers, such as Learn and Grow Child Care Center in Chambersburg, are paying little attention to the Keystone STAR program.

"We don't really see a benefit to it," said Jackie Green, director and owner of the center. "I don't think it makes the teacher any more qualified."

Green, along with her five-person staff, said they complete more training through the Penn State extension office than is required by the state.

"It's important for us to get training every year," Green said. "New things come along every day and it's exciting to bring it back to the kids."

Place agrees that a center's Keystone STAR rating does not mean everything.

"The state's big push is for quality right now," Place said. "At each of the different star levels there are different criteria that must be met. It doesn't mean others aren't quality programs."

The only child care center in the area that has a STAR 2 rating is Waynesboro Day Care Center. Denise Feeser, executive director of the center, said she knows the difficulties of the program firsthand.

"It is a hard, hard, hard climb," Feeser said. "I can understand centers not wanting to jump through those bureaucratic hoops. It took me two years to get to a STAR 2."

But Feeser said the incentives offered by the program along with the increased public recognition make it worth while.

"The plus side is the grant money," Fesser said. "It's a wonderful program to encourage because it is awful hard to prove quality in our business."

Just like the field of child care, the Keystone STAR program is constantly changing. Fesser said she plans to have the center rated at STAR 3 within the next two years, despite changes in the program.

"They are cutting down on the money and changing the requirements," Fesser said. "We're just waiting to take a look at what we need to do and then we will go forward."

Comment: In EVV there is a five star program, and the GS is going for a four star. The five star program includes an accreditation from the National Association for Early Childhood Development out of Washington D.C., but it means becoming a day care and not a school, so we will stop at a four star.

We are the only early childhood place in town where every teacher is working on a Master's degree, and where teaching/learning is integrated with play. We include every single thing that the new Community Impact group wants to initiate in the next twenty years.

What most star programs want is no turn over, teachers who have experience and training and teachers who read to the children. It's really not a challenge.