QRIS: What Does it Mean for Child Care?

In spring 2005, the Legislature passed and Governor Gregoire signed House Bill 1152 (sponsored by Representative Ruth Kagi) requiring the creation of an Early Learning Council. The Council was directed to make recommendations by November 2005 on:

• What government agency or department should manage child care-related services and supports such as licensing and subsidies;
• A design for a Quality Rating and Improvement System (known as QRIS) for licensed child care, and;
• A design for a tiered-reimbursement system to reward higher quality with a financial bonus.

The Governor also made this initiative a part of her overall review of early learning, K-12 and higher education called Washington Learns. In mid-November, the Washington Learns Steering Committee accepted the proposed draft framework for a QRIS. If funded, the QRIS will be “tried out” in two communities next year. These pilot projects will be used to further develop the system. The hope is that QRIS will receive funding within a few years to become available statewide. Following are some questions and answers about QRIS.

So what is a QRIS? First, it’s a voluntary system offering help and rewards to providers to increase the quality of care for children in child care centers, school-age programs, and family child care homes. Head Start, ECEAP and certified tribal programs can also participate. Second, QRIS provides a way to measure the quality of participating programs in order to provide ratings for families looking for care. The current design of the QRIS has five steps, or levels, and licensing is the first level. Accreditation or its equivalent is the top level.  This framework is still a work-in-progress and the Early Learning Council is open to input from all.

 Who created the QRIS for our state? Two groups have been working on QRIS and tiered reimbursement for over a year, one in Spokane and one in King County. Discussions and pilot projects to enhance child care quality have been going on much longer than that. However, the framework required by the Governor was created over the past four months by volunteers from around the state who work in the child care field, including family home, center and school-age providers, resource and referral staff, licensors, state agency staff, private funders, research institutes and many others.

Why would child care, preschool, and after school programs participate in the QRIS? Quality care for children is the main goal. Many programs don’t have the resources, support and knowledge to make major improvements.  An effective QRIS will include those supports as well as tiered reimbursement to reward increased quality with increased dollars. Child care programs may also use their ratings to attract families and others who want to contribute to their programs’ success, such as local businesses.

 You can get involved in the next step for QRIS. The Early Learning Council responsible for this work holds public meetings in King County once per month. The people appointed to serve on the Early Learning Council hold discussions and make recommendations, but they also invite comment from audience members. Their past meeting materials and notes as well as upcoming agendas and materials are available on the Washington Learns website: http://washingtonlearns.wa.gov. The website includes information on how to join a listserv to receive e-mail notification of meetings, and a feedback form to ask questions or provide input.

 Locally, you can get more information from your resource and referral program, child care association, or AEYC chapter. Whether or not your program decides to participate in the QRIS, everyone in the child care field will be impacted. You can help shape that impact by getting involved now.