Day-care accreditation raises level of learning

Meet Dayton Seabaugh. The blond-haired, blue-eyed 5-year-old can spell his first name, recite the alphabet and add two and two.

So can 5-year-old Madison Hendricks. Their vocabulary and other cognitive abilities are similar, as are the preschools where they have learned to develop those skills.

But there is a difference between The Center for Child Studies at Southeast Missouri State University, where Dayton attends, and Just Kids in Jackson, where Madison attends -- a difference that educators say has a long-lasting impact on a child's success in school.

That difference is accreditation, an official recognition that a set of rigorous standards has been met to ensure a quality child-care program.

Unlike a daycare's state license -- which is renewed every two years through health, sanitation and fire inspections -- accreditation includes many more academic elements.

"It's a goal child-care facilities are working for, and if they reach that, they've gone beyond what the state requires," said Lisa Russell, supervisor of the bureau of child care with the Department of Health and Senior Services in Cape Girardeau. The department is responsible for issuing state licenses to day cares.

One of 55

Of the 55 licensed child-care facilities in Cape Girardeau County and Scott City, the Center for Child Studies is the only one to have achieved accreditation.

Although there are several accreditation systems in the United States, the two most popular in Missouri are the state's accreditation program and the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

The cost, time and effort involved in attaining accreditation, which includes implementing a curriculum and ensuring that every staff member has a college degree, have deterred other local facilities from pursuing it.

But as the benefits of accreditation have become more widely recognized, day cares such as Just Kids have been making strides in that direction through programs like Success by 6, a United Way of America initiative that focuses on encouraging local child-care facilities to become accredited.

"A state license means a safe, clean environment. It looks only at the facility," said Jim Watkins, Success by 6 director and retired principal. "Accreditation looks at what happens in the facility."

Despite the progress that Success by 6 has made in improving local child care, the program is now in danger of being terminated due to a lack of funding.

Success by 6 began in Minnesota in 1988, but the program began to branch out in 1998 when the Bank of America Foundation pledged $50 million in grant money to be used over a five-year period.

The local Success by 6 was implemented in 2002, and provides college scholarships, salary reimbursements, travel stipends and other incentives to day cares in Cape Girardeau County and Scott City that are working toward accreditation.

"We push accreditation because if child-care providers have it, we know they've had training to understand children," Watkins said. "It's all about quality child care."

The program's main funding source -- $108,000 since 2002 -- has been the Bank of America grant. But that grant will expire this February, and the local Success by 6 will be forced to shut down or greatly decrease its services if a new funding source doesn't surface.

Seeking sponsor

The group is looking for a local business, individual or organization with a vested interest in early child care to provide around $65,000 a year to sustain the program.

"At this point, we're very concerned," Watkins said. "We're pursuing potential sources for additional money every day, because it's so important that we continue helping day cares become accredited."

Through Success by 6, Just Kids in Jackson has three employees, including director Rose Kincy, working toward associates degrees at Southeast Missouri State University, and the day care is just one step away from becoming accredited.

"It's been very difficult and a lot of paperwork," Kincy said. "We were scared to death when we started. We didn't think we could do it."

Just Kids has another day care in Jackson, as well as in Cape Girardeau and Perryville. Their facility on Rosamund Street in Jackson is their test case for accreditation.

Over the past two years, staff members at Just Kids have adopted a new curriculum, spent many hours reviewing daily operations of the day care to conform with state standards and have begun working on college degrees.

"There's no more standing over kids' shoulders, telling them not to color outside the lines," Kincy said. "You'd think after 23 years working in child care I'd know the best ways to teach children, but I didn't. It's something I learned only through the accreditation process."

The possibility of losing Success by 6 has Kincy concerned about whether other local day cares will have an opportunity to achieve accreditation.

"If you're making minimum wage, you can't afford to go to college. My staff is juggling a full-time job, family and school," Kincy said. "Without Success by 6, we wouldn't have been able to do it."

And yet, the growing evidence that accredited facilities have a lasting impact on children makes Success by 6's goal even more worthwhile.

Gretchen Berhorst, supervisor of the early childhood section with the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, said a state-initiated, four-year evaluation of kindergartners, though still in its preliminary stages, has already shown that children who attended accredited programs have higher scores than children who did not.

Studies done by individual school districts, such as Ferguson-Florissant in St. Louis, show that third- and fourth-grade students who attended accredited preschools score higher on the state's annual standardized test, the Missouri Assessment Program.

"We feel accreditation is really making a difference, and the results are beginning to come through now," Berhorst said.

Seeing the difference

Local kindergarten teachers say they too can see a difference in students who have attended structured day care programs.

"You can handpick the kids who have been in a structured situation," said Jana Scott, a kindergarten teacher at South Elementary in Jackson. "They can do simple things like walk in line, wait their turn and sit and listen to a story. It's those little things that help a kindergarten teacher through the first few weeks of school."

Scott spent four years working at a preschool in Poplar Bluff, Mo., and has been teaching at South Elementary for three years.

"When kids are in the typical day care situation, more like baby-sitting, they may pick up a few concepts here and there, but they're not learning prekindergarten skills," Scott said.

Most parents also recognize the advantages of having their children in an accredited child-care facility. Lisa Seabaugh, Dayton's mother, said she feels there is a need for more accredited programs in this area.

"They're instilling a love for learning in Dayton. He's learning to be a lifelong learner, and that's going to impact how he does in school," Seabaugh said. "It's an informal method of teaching what is developmentally appropriate for the child's age."

Success by 6 has helped 12 local child-care workers obtain 87 hours of college credit over the past year. Five day cares are currently working toward accreditation through the program. Success by 6 also offers assistance to low-income families as well as parent education workshops.

cclark@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 128