Maintaining NAEYC Accreditation Quality Standards

CSPC is proud to have a long history of NAEYC Accreditation. This accreditation program, created and administered by the National Association for the Education of Young Children is an excellent tool to use to assure ourselves that we are putting into practice the latest research on how to help children learn and develop optimally and keep ourselves at the forefront of the early childhood field. We have held our NAEYC Accreditation since 1991 and have thus proved repeatedly that we are capable of maintaining these very high quality standards.

If we are to truly deserve the honor of being an NAEYC Accredited child development program, it is not enough to work intensely every five years when we have to be recertified. This tool is one that should be used to assure teachers, administrators, and parents, that the quality standards are being met every day. And further than that, an NAEYC Accredited program is required to have a thoughtful and active strategy for continuous improvement.

At CPSC we take this very seriously. We have thought carefully about how to make reflection about the accreditation criteria part of our day to day practice. This year we are instituting a monthly gathering we are calling the Accreditation Study Circle. Once a month, from 6:30 to 8:30 representatives from each classroom will gather and spend two hours working on our classroom and administrative portfolios. Each portfolio is required to contain documentation of our current practices on the accreditation criteria that pertain to classroom and administrative practice.

Teachers discuss and reflect together.This time spent each month provides our teachers time to reflect on their classroom practices, think about how we are meeting the accreditation criteria, and make sure the documentation in the portfolios are up to date. This time to reflect on NAEYC program quality standards and our own practice results in a program that is consistently rather than periodically excellent.