What is quality? This question has been pondered so many times in the many years of serving in the field of early childhood education. Parents look for certain things like hours, tuition and safety measures. Teachers look for wages, benefits, classroom supports and a positive workplace. No one looks for documentation of meeting deadlines for meetings, writing endless continuous quality improvement plans or the countless hours of uploading documentation to people who sit in offices to prove what we do EVERYDAY.

We have taken tremendous pride in attaining and maintaining STAR 4 status for many years. Each year the standards change, and we have rolled with them. We have grumbled, yes, but made the changes in paperwork for the sake of paperwork just to have that notoriety of being the “BEST”.

COVID came and through us all into turmoil…but we survived. Grant money was available to provide learning materials for classrooms and bonus money for staff. It wasn’t much, but it was something and made it worth it to make the changes we needed to make with the standards. COVID changed our world. It changed how employees look for opportunities both with schedules and wages.

And here we are again…trying to keep everything together to create the best place for children, families and staff asking what is quality? The grant money has ended and standards have increased. Staff demand (and rightfully so) increased wages and benefits. This has forced us to look at what truly matters and where our financial resources should go.

For us, at Little Acorns Learning Center, it has always been about the children and will continue to be so. They are our future. We need to ensure they feel safe exploring the world around them, especially now that some of them have lost 2 years of social skills. We recognize our challenges are great with big feelings. All the documentation to Harrisburg won’t help that child. The teacher that can take a moment, bond, and look for interests without worrying about a deadline on a report will make the difference. The report will still be done, but the stress of signatures, dates, and uploading it all for someone to “judge” will be gone.

Effective 2/9/25, we have made the decision not to renew our Star 4 and drop to STAR 1. What does this mean? It means we will LOVE children like we always have; we will provide them with a safe environment full of enriching learning activities. Teachers will complete professional development training that is meaningful to them and their needs – not the needs of someone who sits in Harrisburg and has dictated the required training while expecting these very same teachers to individualize instruction for our children. We will continue to offer parent-teacher conferences, conduct developmental screenings, and transition children to new classrooms as they are developmentally ready. It means we are choosing children over paperwork. Choosing teacher connections over documentation and deadlines. It means we will be the BEST without the stress and in the end better off for our children. Our designation will be in hearts not stars.