Reaching for the Stars

Oklahoma has a program that offers child care providers incentives to improve their services, develop the whole child and make more money. Reaching for the Stars rates providers with more Stars when they:

• Increase their own training and education
• Create settings for early learning
• Involve parents in their programs
• Earn national accreditation

As they earn more Stars, providers can make more money, because state subsidies for children in their care will be larger.

The Oklahoma Department of Human Services, Child Care Division started "Reaching for the Stars" with three goals in mind:

• To improve the quality of child care by increasing the skills of teachers
• To let parents compare the quality of different child care providers
• To raise OKDHS's subsidy payments, resulting in more slots for children with low-income families

Within the Stars program, there are four levels of quality:

• One Star programs meet only the minimum licensing requirements.
• One Star Plus programs meet additional quality criteria, including additional training, reading to children daily, parent involvement and self-assessment.
• Two Star programs meet additional quality criteria OR have national accreditation.
• Three Star programs meet even higher quality criteria AND have national accreditation.

Criteria for the four levels are summarized at:
http://www.okdhs.org/programsandservices/cc/stars/starscriteria.htm

To see reimbursement rates by Star level, go to the link below and review pages 5-8 of the resulting publication.
http://www.okdhs.org/NR/rdonlyres/6C1E2B9A-A97A-45E3-BF42-7E0BB6360209/0/OKDHS_ApC4.pdf

For complete information about the Stars program, go to:
http://www.okdhs.org/divisionsoffices/visd/dcc/stars/docs/starscontactinformation.htm and contact the Stars outreach specialist for your location.