Providers

The Pinellas 5-Star QIS was established to improve the quality of Pinellas' early childhood education programs, to provide parents with an easy-to-use tool to identify and select quality child care programs, and to provide financial incentives and assistance to programs to maintain and/or improve the quality of the services they deliver.

Participation in Pinellas 5-Star is voluntary and open to all school readiness providers.

Participating providers must meet the quality standards established by the ELCP and the JWB to receive improvement incentives.

The program's activities are evaluated by trained observers using the Environment Rating Scale (ERS) which measures program quality in an objective manner.

The ERS is a research-based, valid, and internationally used tool, developed at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  

The areas that are assessed include:

• Space and Furnishings
• Personal Care Routines
• Listening and Talking
• Activities
• Interaction
• Program Structure 

Other factors that are reviewed are:

• Child care licensing compliance history
• Ratios/group size
• Teacher credentials
• Accreditation

This system not only recognizes the quality care providers, but helps to identify ones that can most benefit from the 5-Star programstechnical assistance and training.

Providers may download the 5-Star Provider Manual by clicking on this link: 

• Provider 5-Star Manual

Questions about the Pinellas 5-Star Program can be directed to:

Judy Scott, Pinellas 5-Star Program Administrator, at (727) 547-4254 or jscott@childcarepinellas.org