DEL News

January 14, 2008
Pierce County joins DEL pilot sites for QRIS

OLYMPIA – The Department of Early Learning (DEL) today announced it is adding a sixth pilot site to its Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS). Pierce County will join the first phase of the QRIS pilot project as a privately funded site.

QRIS is a statewide voluntary system to enhance child care quality by providing more information to parents and supporting child care providers in enhancing the quality of their programs. Establishing a QRIS was a key strategy in Governor Chris Gregoire’s 2006 Washington Learns report.

“It is clear that Pierce County’s early learning community is ready to benefit from and contribute to the QRIS process,” said DEL Director Jone Bosworth. “It’s remarkable that they’ve raised their own private funding to join the pilot project, and I think that speaks volumes about their commitment to improving early learning opportunities in their community. Pierce County will be a valuable addition to this phase of QRIS implementation.”

The Pierce County pilot project will be headed up by Tacoma-Pierce County Child Care Resource & Referral. They will convene an executive team that will include United Way of Pierce County and Puget Sound Educational Service District. United Way of Pierce County is dedicating $75,000 to the project.

In early November, five pilot communities were selected to receive funding from DEL for the first phase of the QRIS pilot project. Four of the sites selected for design and pilot testing were from counties designated in statute. DEL selected a fifth site to ensure statewide representation. The selected communities are:

  • Vancouver (Educational Service District #112)
  • Bremerton (Olympic Educational Service District #114)
  • Yakima (Thrive by Five Washington — East Yakima Early Learning Initiative)
  • White Center (Thrive by Five Washington — White Center Early Learning Initiative)
  • Washington State University Spokane

Pierce County submitted a proposal during the initial selection process, but was not among the selected sites in the extremely competitive process. The county’s early learning community mobilized and secured the funding necessary to join the QRIS design process.

While Pierce County will not be a state-funded pilot site, it will be collaborating with the other pilot communities and gathering information from local stakeholders, educators and parents to give recommendations for DEL’s final determination in the same manner as the state-funded communities.

“Pierce County is in a prime position to be a pilot site for developing a QRIS system,” said Christine Rosenquist, supervisor of Child Care Resource & Referral of Tacoma-Pierce County. “With our long-standing strong collaborations, and our Pierce County Early Learning Consortium, we have a solid system from which great ideas can be developed.”

“We are excited about the opportunity to work with Child Care Resource & Referral and all the amazing organizations in the Pierce County community who have dedicated themselves to improving their professional practices to ensure that a higher standard of care will be provided to young children through their child care providers,” said Rick Allen, president of United Way of Pierce County.

The goal of this pilot design phase of QRIS is to generate as much information at the community level as possible. The pilot implementation phase will begin next summer. DEL will use the information from the design phase as it tests one system.

To learn more about QRIS, visit www.del.wa.gov/quality/QRIS.shtml.

For more information:

DEL Communications Manager Amy Blondin
360.725.4919 (office)
360.878.0628 (cell)
amy.blondin@del.wa.gov