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• R.E.E.T.A.I.N. (Retaining Early Educators Through Attaining Incentives Now)
• T.E.A.C.H. (Teacher Education And Compensation Helps) Early Childhood® MINNESOTA
• Q.R.S (Quality Rating System)
• MN Core Competencies
• Early Learning Guidelines (Early Childhood Indicators of Progress)
• ECERS, ITERS, SACERS , & FDCRS - Environment Rating Scales

REETAIN
Are you a child care provider in Minnesota who holds an Associate Degree or higher, or have you earned and maintained a CDA credential from the Council for Professional Recognition? Then you could qualify for a R.E.E.T.A.I.N. grant.

Administered by the MN Child Care Resource & Referral Network, R.E.E.T.A.I.N (Retaining Early Educators Through Attaining Incentives Now) is a workforce retention program that strives to reduce the turnover rates among child care providers who work with young children.   Grant recipients are free to use grant dollars as they chose. Grant dollars are considered additional salary and may be used to pay bills, reinvest in your in your child care setting, or cover personal expenses.

Awards:
Our Summer 05 round of funding has just been completed. We awarded 79 grants to family providers across the state for a total of $207,000.
The grants range from $1000 to $3500 depending upon the level of education attained.
The grant application period occurs once a year:

• For family providers –June 1 through July 31st
• For center-based providers – December 1st through January 31st .

Requirements:

REETAIN is a program that offers grants to providers who:

• Are licensed or work for a licensed program
• Have been working in their current position for at least one year
• Have earned a CDA, Associate Degree, Bachelors degree or higher
• Are willing to commit to staying in their position for one year.

Application Materials:
Applications for the next round will be available on December 1st at MNStreams.org. Providers can fill out an electronic application or download and print a paper application. More information and instructions are also available at www.MNStreams.org.

T.E.A.C.H. (Teacher Education And Compensation Helps) Early Childhood® MINNESOTA seeks to improve education and compensation for child care providers, while reducing turnover rates.

Administered by the MN Child Care Resource & Referral Network, TEACH is a scholarship program that helps child care providers earn a college degree in Early Childhood Education or Child Development. The scholarship pays for a large portion of college tuition and books and also provides assistance with transportation and substitution costs. Successful scholarship recipients also qualify for a pay raise or bonus upon completion of their scholarship contract.

Centers and providers can use their participation in the TEACH program as a recruitment and advertising tool as well as market the reduced turnover rates and increased quality of their programs. Most critically, children benefit from caregivers who are specialists in early childhood education and understand the complexities of child development.

Students wishing to apply for a scholarship for the Spring-06 school term should make application before November 1st, 2005. Smaller scholarships are available to cover CDA assessment fees for providers seeking this credential.

History
TEACH began in North Carolina in 1990 as a strategy to increase the education of child care providers and offer incentives for them to remain at their current place of employment. TEACH has reduced the turnover from 35% to 9% in some parts of North Carolina and the program has been replicated successfully in 20 states nationwide.

The T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® MINNESOTA program was developed to increase the level of education among child care providers.

What does TEACH offer?

• TEACH offers scholarships to child care providers who want a CDA, an Associate's Degree, or a Bachelor's Degree.
• TEACH covers 85% of the CDA Assessment Fee, and up to 80% of the cost of tuition and books for Associate's and Bachelor's degree students seeking a degree in child development or early childhood education.
• TEACH also offers money for travel, release time, and a bonus (if applicable to the scholarship).

Click here for additional program information and application requirements for T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® MINNESOTA

Or call:

• Metro Phone: 651-290-9704 Extension 108
• Toll-Free: 888-308-3224

Funders

• Bigelow Foundation
• ELOA Grant in partnership with the Minneapolis Youth Coordinating Board
• Federal Child Care Block Grant
• Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation
• Mardag Foundation
• Otto Bremer Foundation
• Rochester Area Foundation
• St. Paul Foundation

Q.R.S. (Quality Rating System)
Responding to the need to help parents find quality care and education and to provide programs with resources and incentives to improve and/or maintain high quality, Ready 4K and the Child Care Financing Project convened a statewide citizens' Task Force including licensed family child care providers and child care center directors, school-age programs, Head Start and Tribal child care programs, Child Care Resource and Referral, government officials and other concerned citizens.  This Task Force developed recommendations for a voluntary Quality Rating System (QRS) for early care and education and school-age programs in Minnesota. 

The proposed Quality Rating System (QRS) for Minnesota will be voluntary and open to licensed family child care providers, child care centers, Head Start programs, preschools and school age programs. The QRS will reward quality providers, provide struggling programs with incentives to improve, and provide parents with ratings on how a program performs on key indicators of quality. By linking providers to financial incentives and resources, child care and early education services as well as child outcomes will be improved.

More information:

• Draft Plan for a Minnesota Quality Rating System (PDF)  Here are the ABCs of QRS. The draft plan for a Minnesota Quality Rating System for child care and early education and schoolage programs does not promote any required curriculum but rather focuses on how a program performs on key indicators of quality related to child outcomes.
• Overview of the Minnesota Quality Rating System (PDF)  The four page overview outlines the main features of the quality rating system.

Learn more about the MN Quality Rating System.

Minnesota Core Competencies
Administrated by the Minnesota Professional Development Council, the core competencies are designed to serve as a guide for improving your work with children and families. The competencies are worded so that they can be measured or demonstrated. You may also find the core competencies contain new ideas or provide a new way of reflecting on your teaching. 

The core competencies are divided into eight content areas. Each of the eight areas contains five levels that range from the skills and knowledge of a beginning practitioner to the more advanced skills and knowledge possessed by a professional with a masters degree.   

Early Learning Guidelines (Early Childhood Indicators of Progress)

The Early Childhood Indicators of Progress: Minnesota’s Early Learning Guidelines for Birth to 3 provide a framework for understanding and communicating a common set of developmentally appropriate expectations for infants and toddlers within a context of shared responsibility and accountability for helping very young children meet these expectations. The specific goals that Minnesota wants to achieve are:

1. To provide information parents and other caregivers can use to better understand widely held expectations for infant and toddler development.
2. To promote high quality child care, early childhood education, and children’s health;
3. To maximize linkages and develop comprehensive and coordinated services to benefit families with infants and toddlers based on the Early Learning Guidelines framework.

Early learning guidelines express shared expectations for young children’s learning and provide a common language for measuring progress toward achieving these goals.

The national early childhood initiative of which the Minnesota project is a part, defines early learning guidelines as research-based, measurable expectations about what children should know (understand) and do (competencies and skills) in different domains of learning (National Infant and Toddler Child Care Initiative, 2004). Early learning guidelines should be applicable to various early care and education settings and to care provided by parents and families. Sometimes early learning guidelines are developed as one component of program standards; however these terms have different meanings and intended uses. Program standards are
expectations about the characteristics or quality of early care and education settings.

Minnesota currently has program standards for infant and toddler care and education in the form of licensing regulations. Federal programs such as Early Head Start also have
program standards (Administration for Children and Families, 2003).

Minnesota is choosing to use the term “Early Learning Guidelines” for ages birth to three in order to emphasize flexibility in the application and uses of the birth to three guidelines and to avoid having them confused with program standards.

The Minnesota Early Learning Guidelines for Birth to 3 are intended as a resource to support the learning and development of Minnesota’s infants and toddlers and to promote high quality early childhood care and education.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES
The development of the Early Childhood Indicators of Progress: Minnesota’s Early Learning Guidelines for Birth to 3 was informed by the following Guiding Principles:
 

Infants and toddlers develop in the context of their families, cultures, and communities. Each individual is unique with their own temperament and rate of development. Development is the result of many different factors, including physical and emotional health and well being, nutrition, sensitive and responsive care giving, and the quality of their environment.

Nurturing and responsive care giving helps infants and toddlers develop secure and trusting relationships. Infants and toddlers with secure and trusting relationships are better able to learn, play and grow. Infants and toddlers are active learners who learn through play, interaction with others, and active exploration of their environment.

The years from birth to three represent a period of rapid growth and development and are critical for the healthy development of young children. Development begins prenatally and learning during infancy provides the foundation for school readiness and success in school. Early intervention can help reduce developmental delays and fosters optimal growth and development.

Multiple abilities and skills are developing simultaneously in the first three years of life. As these abilities and skills emerge, each affects the development of the others. For example, changes in an infant’s ability to remember affects how they respond to new people. Development of the whole child requires maximizing potential across multiple domains.

ORGANIZATION AND STRUCTURE OF THE DOCUMENT
The Early Learning Guidelines for Birth to 3 are divided into four domains that reflect the full range of child development.
 Social and Emotional Development
 Language Development and Communication
 Cognitive Development
 Physical and Motor Development

Each domain of development is related to and influences the others. The domains are further divided into components that designate important areas of infant and toddler development within each domain. Indicators of progress for infants and toddlers in gaining competencies, knowledge, skills, and behaviors are then specified within each component.

This resource is currently in a DRAFT stage.  Look over the document in its entirety.

Environment Rating Scales

There are four environment rating scales, each designed for a different segment of the early childhood field.

1. ECERS - Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale
   Designed to assess group programs for children of preschool through kindergarten age, 2½ through 5.
2. ITERS - Infant Toddler Environmental Rating Scale
   Designed to assess group programs for children from birth to 2½ years of age.
3. SACERS - School Age Care Environmental Rating Scale
   Designed to assess family child care programs conducted in a provider's home.
4. FDCRS - Family Day Care Environmental Rating Scale
   Designed to assess group-care programs for children of school age, 5 to 12.

• Each one of the scales has items to evaluate: Physical Environment; Basic Care; Curriculum; Interaction; Schedule and Program Structure; and Parent and Staff Education.
• The scales are suitable for use in evaluating inclusive and culturally diverse programs.
• The scales have proven reliability and validity.

The scales are designed to assess process quality in an early childhood or school age care group. Process quality consists of the various interactions that go on in a classroom between staff and children, staff, parents, and other adults, among the children themselves, and the interactions children have with the many materials and activities in the environment, as well as those features, such as space, schedule and materials that support these interactions. Process quality is assessed primarily through observation and has been found to be more predictive of child outcomes than structural indicators such as staff to child ratio, group size, cost of care, and even type of care, for example child care center or family child care home (Whitebook, Howes & Phillips, 1995).

In order to provide care and education that will permit children to experience a high quality of life while helping them develop their abilities, a quality program must provide for the three basic needs all children have:

• Protection of their health and safety
• Building positive relationships
• Opportunities for stimulation and learning from experience

No one component is more or less important than the others, nor can one substitute for another. It takes all three to create quality care. Each of the three basic components of quality care manifests itself in tangible forms in the program's environment, curriculum, schedule, supervision and interaction, and can be observed. These are the key aspects of process quality that are included in our environmental rating scales.

The scales define environment in a broad sense and guide the observer to assess the arrangement of space both indoors and outdoors, the materials and activities offered to the children, the supervision and interactions (including language) that occur in the classroom, and the schedule of the day, including routines and activities. The support offered to parents and staff is also included.

For more information about the Environment Rating Scales visit the official website.