Utah's Childcare Quality Rating System: What It Means for Directors and Staff

Utah's quality rating system is the Child Care Quality System (CCQS), run by the Department of Workforce Services Office of Child Care.

It sits with a different department than licensing: Utah child care centers are licensed by Child Care Licensing in the Office of Licensing at the Utah Department of Health and Human Services, under Utah Admin.

Code R381-100.

CCQS rates programs on points across five areas, and its verification covers caregiver and director education and professional development, family engagement and other practices.

Programs serving subsidy children are rated; other programs participate voluntarily.

A licensed program serving subsidy children that does not apply for a rating receives a Default Foundation of Quality, and a licensed program not serving subsidy children that does not take part shows the status Not Participating, which the Office of Child Care gives to programs that do not want or are not eligible to participate in CCQS.

CCQS certifies four rating levels: Foundation of Quality, Building Quality, High Quality and High Quality Plus.

Ratings are based on points achieved in five areas: Health and Safety; Learning Environments and Relationships; Leadership and Professional Development; Management and Administration; and National Accreditation.

The point thresholds that separate one level from the next were not established in our research, so ask the Office of Child Care how many points each level requires before you set an advancement goal.

Verification reaches into staff documentation: CCQS verifies caregiver and director education and professional development, alongside family engagement and other practices.

Of the five rated areas, Leadership and Professional Development is the one whose name covers staff development, and National Accreditation is its own area.

What the published materials we reviewed do not spell out is how many points particular credentials or training records earn at each level.

Confirm with the Office of Child Care which credentials, courses and Career Ladder levels score before you build staff development plans around a rating.

Our research did not confirm a classroom observation tool for CCQS.

The two Office of Child Care documents our research reviewed — the CCQS about page and its fact sheet — describe ratings based on points achieved in five areas and verification of caregiver and director education and professional development; neither document names an observation instrument.

Whether a rating application expects on-site observation evidence, and of what kind, was not settled in the pages we reviewed — ask the Office of Child Care what evidence an application or renewal requires.

The rating-linked incentive our research documents is program-level: Utah programs rated High Quality or High Quality Plus may receive a monthly Enhanced Subsidy Grant.

The source says may, not will, and it does not state grant amounts, so ask the Office of Child Care about current terms before planning a budget around one.

For individual staff, our research did not confirm a bonus, wage supplement or stipend tied to a CCQS rating.

Utah's Office of Child Care does fund a scholarship for the Certified Childcare Professional (CCP) credential — up to $350 toward the credential and $50 toward a renewal, for staff working 15+ hours a week in an eligible licensed program — but our research found no link between that scholarship and a program's CCQS rating.

Start from what the CCQS materials document.

The system verifies caregiver and director education and professional development, plus family engagement and other practices.

Ratings, meanwhile, are based on points achieved across five areas: Health and Safety; Learning Environments and Relationships; Leadership and Professional Development; Management and Administration; and National Accreditation.

A practical first step is a records pass — each staff member's education and professional development documentation, in the registry where Utah tracks it — followed by evidence for each of the five areas the program wants to score in.

Know the program's starting status, too: a licensed program serving subsidy children that has not applied already carries Default Foundation of Quality.

Because the point thresholds per level were not established in our research, confirm the scoring rules with the Office of Child Care before setting an advancement goal.

Per the Office of Child Care's Career Ladder brochure, Utah tracks early childhood staff training and education on a 12-level Career Ladder run by the Utah Registry for Professional Development and accessed through Care About Childcare.

The ladder runs from 30 hours of basic training at Level 1 up to a doctorate at Level 12, and Levels 9 through 12 correspond to associate, bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees in related fields.

Because CCQS verification covers caregiver and director education and professional development, staff education and professional-development documentation is what a rating verification looks at.

Our research did not confirm that CCQS reads records directly from the registry, so confirm with the Office of Child Care how staff records feed a rating.