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386: The Biggest Accreditation Mistake With Selena · ChildCare Conversations

• 0:03
  Childcare Conversations: Welcome to Childcare Conversations, a growing community of early childhood leaders asking better questions and finding real solutions together.
• 0:11
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• 0:39
  Childcare Conversations: Now let's get into today's conversation, one we think you're really going to enjoy.
• 0:53
  Kate Woodward Young: And I'm really excited.
• 0:54
  Kate Woodward Young: We've got uh Selena joining us today.
• 0:57
  Kate Woodward Young: Uh, she used to do a lot of accreditation for um a fairly decent sized nonprofit.
• 1:04
  Kate Woodward Young: And I'm gonna leave out which one just so that way we are not muddying waters about uh who or what or whether or not somebody's specific accreditation is better or not, because that's not really the goal of today's conversation.
• 1:20
  Kate Woodward Young: Um but Selena and I are gonna talk about the importance of accreditation, why people might get accredited, and I love it because she's got some myths and some truths that she's gonna bring to the table today.
• 1:30
  Kate Woodward Young: So, Selena, go ahead and introduce every to introduce yourself to everybody and tell them a little bit about how you found yourself in the world of early childhood and specifically in accreditation.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Kate, thank you.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um so Selena McNeely, I was a operations director of uh accreditation, a national accreditation for many years.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the way I found myself here is many, many, many years ago, uh I had young children of my own.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably sounding very familiar already.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I needed a job that would um be complementary to being a mother of young children.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I found myself um volunteering and putting in some time at my children's uh preschool, and then found myself in a nonprofit where I was writing contracts and assisting with uh family eligibility and train then training providers and fast forward again many years right to landing in the world of accreditation and really finding um joy in seeing schools um pursue that high quality journey and then more often than not successful in that journey.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 2:48
  Kate Woodward Young: So let's start with.
• 2:50
  Kate Woodward Young: I'm gonna talk about one question that I know I often hear from owners and directors, and we've got folks all over the globe that are listening.
• 2:58
  Kate Woodward Young: And the biggest one is why?
• 3:00
  Kate Woodward Young: Why should a program even consider an accreditation or some sort of quality stamp?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great question, right?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the things I've said to thousands of people over the years is ask 10 people what quality early learning is, and you will get 11 answers.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: There is uh no shortage of definitions of quality.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: So the reason that most people would uh pursue accreditation is usually there's some sort of intrinsic value here, um, whether it's the next feather in your cap, or there's some sort of very real revenue resource associated with it, or you're just trying to kind of position yourself um, you know, ahead of your nearest competitor.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: So oftentimes what attracts people is hard for me to articulate because everybody comes in um, you know, under their own motivation.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: But usually speaking, it's because it's that really that it's that next level up, right?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're I'm really, really good at basic health and safety.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm knocking licensing out of the park.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm looking to knock quality out of the park as well.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the best way to prove you're knocking it out of the park is through accreditation.
• 4:26
  Kate Woodward Young: I love that.
• 4:27
  Kate Woodward Young: So it's no longer, it's not really about those minimum standards.
• 4:31
  Kate Woodward Young: It's about taking your quality, your health and safety up a notch.
• 4:35
  Kate Woodward Young: I love that.
• 4:36
  Kate Woodward Young: It's probably because my kids were very much into um Emerald Legosity when they were kids.
• 4:41
  Kate Woodward Young: And, you know, they were always kicking it up a notch.
• 4:43
  Kate Woodward Young: And so, bam.
• 4:44
  Kate Woodward Young: And so here we go.
• 4:46
  Kate Woodward Young: I have totally regressed in today's comment speech.
• 4:49
  Kate Woodward Young: So apparently we are now a cooking show and we didn't know it.
• 4:53
  Kate Woodward Young: And so um and as somebody who definitely raised gold star children, I think there, I can see some real validity for programs that just want to be able to say, I have that next level.
• 5:07
  Kate Woodward Young: And so if somebody is trying to figure out whether or not it's the right thing for them, maybe they're trying to figure out where to even start.
• 5:14
  Kate Woodward Young: Like we've mentioned at the beginning, there is more than one way to skin an apple, right?
• 5:19
  Kate Woodward Young: You know, like there's there's definitely different types of accreditation and different types of programs.
• 5:25
  Kate Woodward Young: How does somebody even start to figure out which one do I go with?
• 5:30
  Kate Woodward Young: Whether or not I should.
• 5:31
  Kate Woodward Young: What are some questions that maybe a program might want to ask themselves?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a great question, right?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because there are a load of options.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, uh, there's no shortage, right, of options for accreditation, be it national, regional, international.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Some are, you know, have hundreds of years of longevity behind them.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Others are are, you know, more 20, 30, 50 years in the game.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: So if I was starting out from a position of I don't know where to start or who I should go with, I'd take it back to nuts and bolts.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Again, if I'm looking at knocking my uh minimum health and safety out of the park, if you're not, take it back to those nuts and bolts, right?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: You should probably not be considering that level up if you're still really struggling with those minimum health and safety requirements, however they look where you are.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but if you are knocking that out of the park, the next step would be to explore the philosophy of the accreditors that are available to you in your area.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are looking for a national or an international accreditor, does this accreditor, is this accreditor recognized for what I need the recognition for?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Do I need it because of the feather?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's just something I really wanted to do, and I heard great things about that particular association, or am I pursuing a very real, tangible uh asset like additional revenue associated with my accreditation?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then consider the philosophy.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: So the accreditor I worked for for many years, literacy was the component that drove the accreditation forward.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: That attracted a high volume of schools to us because they uh that resonated, that landed with them having those really robust libraries, emergent reading, emergent writing, and literacy skills.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: There are others that are more health and safety forward.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: So if you really covet hand washing, um, clean the environments, the aesthetics, right?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: There are some that are really well suited um for your school.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a matter of unpacking what you want out of it, what do you need out of it?
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And really what's the motivation that's driving you to explore that accreditation.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Most people are doing pretty much all the little things, right, to be recognized as high quality.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a matter of fine-tuning the process and like finding the one that fits best in your school.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because you don't want to have to try to fit your school into the box of somebody else's, you know, mission, right?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: You want it to complement your school.
• 8:25
  Kate Woodward Young: You know, you brought up a great point with that.
• 8:27
  Kate Woodward Young: And and I think that that dovetails into even, um, we could probably go down an advocacy route, even if we wanted to, because I'm thinking we know that there are some states that have their own quality improvement rating systems.
• 8:40
  Kate Woodward Young: And we know that out of that in the US, that some of those states will take a national or an international accreditation in lieu of their state um accreditation or you know, as a way to get you to up a notch in their state.
• 8:59
  Kate Woodward Young: But we also know, and I'm getting, and this is the only one I'm gonna pull out, and it's not even a specific, it's more an educational philosophy, that at least I know in the state of Texas, the state's quality improvement program really struggles with Messory programs.
• 9:17
  Kate Woodward Young: Not that they don't think Montessory programs are quality programs, but most of the evaluators don't understand the educational philosophy well enough to know what to put in one of their boxes, right?
• 9:31
  Kate Woodward Young: Like their box says this, and they know what that looks like in what they think of as traditional early learning.
• 9:40
  Kate Woodward Young: Um, you know, but yet it's an out of, you know, it's not traditional early learning.
• 9:48
  Kate Woodward Young: And, you know, my favorite one is quote unquote print-rich environment.
• 9:53
  Kate Woodward Young: And what that's translated to in a lot of programs is that we put a name on everything, right?
• 9:58
  Kate Woodward Young: And it's the spelling, word card, it's more bilingual if you've got it in.
• 10:02
  Kate Woodward Young: Yeah.
• 10:03
  Kate Woodward Young: Yeah.
• 10:03
  Kate Woodward Young: Like last time I checked, I've never sat at a table and seen the word table on my table.
• 10:08
  Kate Woodward Young: And but yet that somehow seems to make it a print-rich environment, which is not really, if you read the definition, what that's supposed to look like.
• 10:18
  Kate Woodward Young: And so when you think about, you know, Messory programs, um, again, uh, if you don't understand the role of a guide and you don't understand the role of the materials, um, it's really hard for you to clearly as an evaluator be able to do that.
• 10:35
  Kate Woodward Young: So um that's a great thing.
• 10:37
  Kate Woodward Young: We just want to add that little piece.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great Montessory, right?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: When you think about uh that very democratic approach to the teacher being kind of um, you know, an observer and not necessarily being in every piece and part of the children's learning and work, it's a very difficult thing for a traditional preschool observer to fit together.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Classroom rules, right?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Posted.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Not a thing you would see in a monastery, right?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because the behavior expectations are set by the peer group, not by the rules that are on the wall.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a very that's uh making a great point to looking at the philosophy, right, of the accreditor you've selected.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you are looking at a very traditional preschool accreditation, how will you tell your story to that traditional preschool accreditation in your Montessori forward environment?
• 11:38
  Kate Woodward Young: I love that being able to tell your story because I think that that's one of those things that even if you don't ever actually move forward and go through all the steps of accreditation, I do think there's a lot of value of just pulling up a set of standards and starting to get an idea, where do you, you know, what does the next set of level of standards look like?
• 12:03
  Kate Woodward Young: And how do you get through to that next level?
• 12:06
  Kate Woodward Young: And, you know, what is the role of parent communication?
• 12:09
  Kate Woodward Young: Or like, you know, what are the things that maybe if you don't do well enough in them as you're doing your self-study or you're just evaluating and that you see one that says, oh, it they really look at this.
• 12:20
  Kate Woodward Young: Um, how do you tell your story?
• 12:22
  Kate Woodward Young: And I think that was just, I love that phrase.
• 12:24
  Kate Woodward Young: So I think the phrase today.
• 12:26
  Kate Woodward Young: Today I got mine.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, nice, right?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yay.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: So listen, I'm always like, quote it, use it.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um so the self-study, right?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: You bring that up is such a super um just a little bit of conversation, right?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because for most schools, I think the self-study is the part that brings about the most um pause.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because a lot of us, right, aren't we didn't start out in early learning because we're great policy procedure and handbook drafters.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: We started out because we love children.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: We love to transfer knowledge from ourselves to children.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And somehow we found ourselves in the position to purchase a school or run one.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And now, now what, right?
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: So the self-study for those uh that personality of uh business owner operator gives that very real opportunity to unpack what do you have in place?
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's documented, that's process and procedural.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: What don't you have in place?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't, if you do have it, the ability to see if it's working.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: And because accreditation, right, is a continuous improvement opportunity at each interval of re-accreditation, it's a super time, right, to go back again to our nuts and bolts, right?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And to see our driving documentation.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Is it working?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Is it ready for an evolution?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Is it still legal, right?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because oftentimes we haven't really even explored that detail.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the self-study to me is the most profoundly impactful piece of any accreditation, even though it's the if you are not crying when you build a portfolio, you are not doing it right.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's painful, right?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: If it's supposed to be painful.
• 14:19
  Kate Woodward Young: Well, I definitely think that that helps with the the myth or truth.
• 14:23
  Kate Woodward Young: So is the is the myth or truth of whether or not getting accreditation is easy.
• 14:28
  Kate Woodward Young: So, like you said, if you're not crying, you're probably not doing it right.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um even if it's because you're being like honestly reflective and going, I thought I was much better at this piece than the data suggests.
• 14:46
  Kate Woodward Young: Gotta love data.
• 14:47
  Kate Woodward Young: I love data, data, data, data.
• 14:49
  Kate Woodward Young: So yeah, so we've got folks who have are listening who probably have never thought about getting accredited.
• 14:55
  Kate Woodward Young: Um, I know I run in circles where I've met a program, where I've met programs that like they they're really like almost anti-accreditation.
• 15:03
  Kate Woodward Young: Like, and it and part of it becomes um they think they have to fit in a certain box.
• 15:08
  Kate Woodward Young: Um, but so this is where I'm gonna challenge you.
• 15:11
  Kate Woodward Young: So if you're listening and you know that you are in a state that requires things in a specific box, and you know you are not an easy box, right?
• 15:19
  Kate Woodward Young: So, in other words, you are a monetary program in a state that doesn't understand it.
• 15:23
  Kate Woodward Young: And so all of the accreditation on the state level is you have to have the state's version.
• 15:29
  Kate Woodward Young: In other words, you don't have the option to go get a monetary accreditation or something else, right?
• 15:34
  Kate Woodward Young: Like you only have the option to prove you are a quality program by getting the state's accreditation.
• 15:42
  Kate Woodward Young: This is a great opportunity for you to work with local legislators, get legislators to come out, have conversations, even with like it maybe it doesn't have to be legislative.
• 15:52
  Kate Woodward Young: It could just be a policy change or a training that maybe you create for the state on you say this, this is what this looks like in Montessori.
• 16:02
  Kate Woodward Young: So, you know, instead of getting mad, is there a way that you can create um, you know, a tutorial complete with videos and pictures of this is what emergent reading looks like in a Montessori classroom or emerging writing materials.
• 16:21
  Kate Woodward Young: This is what they look like when the guide brings them out and a child is learning to use those materials.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great point, right?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you consider QRIS or uh a limited opportunity or a limited selection, right, of accreditors in a state, which does happen, you know, oftentimes there can only be four or five options.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: I just happen to be in a state where there are 17.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Most of them are faith-based, but a good eight or nine of them, right, are uh available right to any sort of make or model of school.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are limited and QRIS is the driver, that gets re-evaluated every whatever the frequency is, two to five years.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you're bringing right the people who are promulgating right, that QRIS, right, just that fancy word for um, you know, revisiting whether it still works, it's their self-study time, their reaccreditation time, bringing them out and showing them how we're meeting this indicator, we're meeting this standard.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: We're just not meeting it in the word card or labeled table way.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're promulgating those set of QRAS standards, let's consider how we can make that a broader statement versus are all the shelves labeled in the classroom with the word of what's on the shelf?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: If kids can't read, who cares?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 17:51
  Kate Woodward Young: Is is it developmentally appropriate?
• 17:53
  Kate Woodward Young: I mean, again, those are and and those are where, as expert in the industry, this is where I'm gonna challenge you.
• 18:00
  Kate Woodward Young: If you are sitting here going, I don't even know why I got this far, Kate.
• 18:04
  Kate Woodward Young: I am in that anti-accreditation pile.
• 18:07
  Kate Woodward Young: Um, and if you've gotten this far, I'm gonna challenge you to why are you anti-accreditation?
• 18:12
  Kate Woodward Young: Um, is it just because the state's got a very small box?
• 18:15
  Kate Woodward Young: And how do you use your voice to help the state make better decisions?
• 18:20
  Kate Woodward Young: Because the ultimate goal are better programs.
• 18:24
  Kate Woodward Young: Better programs generate theoretically, right?
• 18:28
  Kate Woodward Young: Better kids, better families, um, more relaxed families because the families know that their child is in quality care.
• 18:34
  Kate Woodward Young: And so, you know, if there's but there's a lot of reasons why folks should consider it even if it's not attached to money.
• 18:42
  Kate Woodward Young: So, what do you think is the most popular?
• 18:44
  Kate Woodward Young: You mentioned that gold star child or that, you know, feather in the cap, right?
• 18:49
  Kate Woodward Young: Because they want to be able to say it.
• 18:51
  Kate Woodward Young: Um, we've got the folks that are all about the dollars and cents.
• 18:55
  Kate Woodward Young: So probably uh, you know, either stipends or a change in reimbursement rate from somebody.
• 19:02
  Kate Woodward Young: Um usually majority of the states that change is in um any government subsidies that you get.
• 19:09
  Kate Woodward Young: But I also have seen some private industry um give more money to the programs their children go to if those programs are um accredited somehow.
• 19:21
  Kate Woodward Young: So again, not necessarily a specific accreditation, but um, so what might be another reason that somebody should think about um checking those boxes, at least doing a self-study.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: So let's think return on investment outside of the box of money, right?
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: So uh, you know, that ROI that you get by being accredited isn't always financial, but it will always go back to those nuts and bolts, which can impact you financially.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are uh building in structured systems that fit into um accreditation, you are gonna reduce staff turnover, which means you're gonna reduce issues with things like as basic as attendance.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: It always shocks me that attendance uh role keeping is uh kind of universally a struggle for tenured teachers, let alone um new and inexperienced folks who don't understand the real liability associated with failure to take accurate attendance.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: So reducing those health and safety violations, which is going to reduce right financial liability, better staff engagement, attracting more qualified, talented staff, staff who wants to stick around, families who then you can educate, right?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Always think if I'm going to be accredited, this is not just an educational learning and growing process for you and your team.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is a growing process for your families as well.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: If they move away, how will they be gauging the next program that they uh go see?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Probably off of yours.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're a high-quality learning environment and they move away, like where I live is very transient, uh, an accredited school, right, would be the tier, you know, that they would be gauging every future uh educational opportunity for their children.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: So those consistent practices also build into this.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're using a manual, right, that identifies standards and indicators, and again, I I always want to encourage finding one that has a nice broad language in the standards and indicators so that it invites as many methodologies or philosophies on early learning as possible.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: But no matter what, it gives this framework for your school to work around, and it always gives you.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: The ability to go back and measure your data against that framework.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Every interval of reaccreditation, you're going back and you're testing, right?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Saving money with consistent practices.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's always gonna a little bit come back to money, even if it's not real money right in your pocket attached to subsidy.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: But um the outcomes of students and teachers trends up right in those accredited schools.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know a singular preschool program that doesn't want to be known by the kindergarten that those children attend.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: You really want the children who came out of this school, right?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: I've never met one school, right, who didn't want that comment or that conversation to occur.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, we always get the best students out of that school, usually.
• 22:51
  Kate Woodward Young: Right there is like what a great marketing tool that is, right?
• 22:55
  Kate Woodward Young: Like, so you know, when we talk about no like and trust and building those community relationships, having those kindergarten teachers know that the kids that come from this preschool are always prepared.
• 23:08
  Kate Woodward Young: And if that school is able to say, well, it's because we meet these standards, I mean even better.
• 23:14
  Kate Woodward Young: So again, it comes back to how do you tell your story?
• 23:18
  Kate Woodward Young: Um, if you just, if you include just in your description of your program, well, that's the big problem, right?
• 23:27
  Kate Woodward Young: We are just a toddler, an infant toddler program, or we just do this.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: You just don't do anything.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: You are a toddler program, and we are of high quality as verified by this national entity, and you have real information, right, to share with someone who might have questions about that, right?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: It really is um uh a proud, it's a proud a proud moment for everybody who goes through it, especially to keep being able to share it.
• 24:01
  Kate Woodward Young: Yeah, I think I think one of the things that people miss when they start thinking about accreditation is first of all, you have to provide staff training to your staff every year anyway.
• 24:11
  Kate Woodward Young: So if you're going through accreditation or you are accredited, there's already things you got to be teaching.
• 24:17
  Kate Woodward Young: There's already things you got to be reviewing.
• 24:19
  Kate Woodward Young: So it takes away the what am I going to teach or how are we going to get better?
• 24:24
  Kate Woodward Young: Because you have a documented list.
• 24:26
  Kate Woodward Young: And same with parent communication and community engagement.
• 24:31
  Kate Woodward Young: Because if you don't think it matters because your parents don't care or your parents know, that's because you haven't educated the community on the difference between, you know, if you're if you're a community with 14 preschools and only one is currently accredited and it's a, you know, it's got one level of accreditation, and everybody else might have the state levels, or a couple might have the state one, you know, have you done your due diligence in making sure that the the community understand what high quality looks like?
• 25:06
  Kate Woodward Young: Because anybody can say they're a high quality programmer.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: Ask 10 people, get 11 answers, right?
• 25:12
  Kate Woodward Young: Yep.
• 25:13
  Kate Woodward Young: Yeah.
• 25:14
  Kate Woodward Young: Absolutely.
• 25:15
  Kate Woodward Young: Ask 10 people, get 11 answers.
• 25:18
  Kate Woodward Young: Absolutely love that.
• 25:19
  Kate Woodward Young: Selena, as we start to wrap up this conversation, if somebody's thinking about it, what is, is there a resource or a place, wink wink, for them to go to to start to figure out maybe where is the best place for them or what are all the different options?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: So um I a little bit do that, right?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: So um I do have a consulting company, um, you know, Center for Strategy and Accreditation Consulting.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if someone was finding themselves kind of asking those questions about where do they go, but not necessarily knowing how to get to the answers to those questions or where they should even start, that's something I'd be happy to and listen, no charge, right?
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: They can call me, uh, email me, and uh I'm happy, right, to provide a little checklist of source, right?
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as you're doing your homework, um, this is your resource and referral, right?
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Opportunity, the same thing that we would give to families and say, go um take a tour, go um see if this school meets right your needs.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you should do the same thing, right, with any accreditation that you are um pursuing.
• 26:38
  Kate Woodward Young: So well, so I'm just gonna throw this out there and throw Selena under the bus.
• 26:42
  Kate Woodward Young: She's gonna have one of those, I'm sure, and we'll include that link in the show notes.
• 26:47
  Kate Woodward Young: Um, if at the absolute least, you will definitely get all of Selena's contact information, how you can find her, whether it's in social media, um, LinkedIn, social media-ish, adjacent websites, et cetera, because we really do want everybody who's listening to kind of figure out what options do you have?
• 27:09
  Kate Woodward Young: And if you are a square peg and a round hole, how you should make sure that your state is making better decisions.
• 27:18
  Kate Woodward Young: And so uh find your voice and communicate with your state organization, in other words, the agency that oversees you, that might be an easy lift, um, especially if you're able to say, by the way, there's already 42 other states that take, and I'm gonna go with Montessori because I know there's an international Montessori accreditation.
• 27:41
  Kate Woodward Young: And not every state takes that.
• 27:44
  Kate Woodward Young: And part of it's because the Montessori programs haven't stood up and said, hey, instead of me playing your game and we fighting and me only putting labels on the table because I know you're coming out that day.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want that, right?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: That because that's not your story.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: Your story is not labels for the day, right?
• 28:08
  Kate Woodward Young: But apparently that's what happens.
• 28:10
  Kate Woodward Young: I I have a monitoring program I work with in the panhandle of Texas, and they had one evaluator that they had trained.
• 28:20
  Kate Woodward Young: Um, and so that evaluator knew how to put their materials into their boxes and all of that stuff.
• 28:26
  Kate Woodward Young: And then they got a new one who was also fairly new to the industry, had only been in early childcare for a couple of years, didn't understand Montessori at all, but they were really good with a checklist and they just were having a really hard time.
• 28:38
  Kate Woodward Young: And so they didn't score them very high at all.
• 28:41
  Kate Woodward Young: So they're like, okay, why don't you come back in a couple of weeks?
• 28:46
  Kate Woodward Young: And so he came, they came back in a couple of weeks, and they literally had gone through and did all of the That makes me sad.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: It it's very, very sad.
• 28:56
  Kate Woodward Young: That doesn't that doesn't at all right serve the school and it didn't match their educational philosophy, and to just do it because it made and it did make a drastic difference in their you know subsidy reimbursement.
• 29:11
  Kate Woodward Young: So I know why she did it.
• 29:12
  Kate Woodward Young: Oh, how ex how how how frustrating is this?
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: We can uh this is a great time.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Go back to that little advocacy part, right?
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then engaging with your state.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: So think about it.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: We're in August.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: Most states begin their um, you know, their subcommittees start to form at the beginning of the new year, right at the end of this current year.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: So you are as a school, regardless of where your school is located, in a position to start peeling the layers back before they ever go and make any decisions in those subcommittees, right?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine that you're the voice that is in their ear when they sit at that round table talking about the next step of early learning in your state and how all models of early learning can be represented well and achieve those higher rates or achieve those feathers without labeling tables and shelves only for the purpose of getting it.
• 30:19
  Kate Woodward Young: I'm not saying that that's bad for all educational philosophies, but there are just some where that doesn't fit the educational philosophy at all.
• 30:27
  Kate Woodward Young: I just want to make sure that nobody thinks that we're bashing certain programs.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: We can totally we've all done it, right?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: We all sh uh we all show up and put the face on somewhere, right?
• 30:38
  Kate Woodward Young: We do, we do, we absolutely do.
• 30:40
  Kate Woodward Young: Well, Selena, thank you so much for joining me on today's conversation.
• 30:45
  Kate Woodward Young: And if you don't already subscribe to the podcast newsletter, go to childcareconversations.com and click the newsletter button up at the top and sign up.
• 30:55
  Kate Woodward Young: We do send out a newsletter twice a week, and it goes with every episode that we drop.
• 31:00
  Kate Woodward Young: So we drop two episodes a week.
• 31:02
  Kate Woodward Young: And do you know that there's sometimes content in the newsletter that you're not gonna get in the podcast?
• 31:08
  Kate Woodward Young: So with that, we can't wait to see you in a few days.
• 31:16
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