Latest News

New Certificate Program for Early Childhood Leaders Through this new opportunity, early childhood leaders can develop a diverse skillset to excel in their career and position themselves for success in a Quality Improvement Specialist role with QUALITYstarsNY. MARCH 2021 UPDATE: The application window for the QI Specialist Pilot [...]

QUALITYstarsNY has launched a newly redesigned website! As New York State’s Quality Rating & Improvement System for early childhood, QUALITYstarsNY strives to provide critical information to the early childhood community that ensures educators can create high quality programs and families can trust the level of quality in the programs they choose. The new qualitystarsny.org is [...]

As of Monday, January 11, 2020, the COVID-19 vaccine is now available for all early childhood educators in New York State. New Yorkers eligible for the vaccine include: P-12 Schools: P-12 school or school district faculty or staff (includes all teachers, substitute teachers, student teachers, school administrators, paraprofessional staff and support staff including bus drivers) [...]

Kathy Siragusa has been involved in the early childhood field for 30 years. Before joining QUALITYstarsNY, Kathy taught in a variety of Chautauqua County schools and child care centers, as a toddler teacher, a UPK teacher and public school teacher. Kathy has supported children, families and teachers as a school age coordinator and child care center program director. Additionally, she has worked with the teacher education programs at Jamestown Community College and SUNY Fredonia as an adjunct instructor and cooperating teacher. Kathy holds a Master’s Degree in Curriculum & Instruction and Bachelor’s Degree in Early Childhood Education from SUNY Fredonia, and earned an Associate of Arts in Social Sciences from Jamestown Community College. She has also served as a board member for the Chautauqua County Chapter of New York Association for the Education of Young Children (NYAEYC).

View this guide to the options you have for child care, with a breakdown of the different features of each.

There's less than one month left to ensure that ALL children and families across New York are counted in the 2020 Census. The 2020 Census will be used to determine how federal funding is spent on a range of programs that impact New York’s children and families. It’s up to all of us in [...]

A flyer detailing all about Starts With Stars, an initiative from QUALITYstarsNY that supports programs just starting out or under new leadership.

A digital version of our School-based program flyer.

As New York State’s Quality Rating & Improvement System (QRIS) for early childhood programs, QUALITYstarsNY is committed to helping early childhood programs overcome the unprecedented challenges presented by COVID-19. Many programs across New York State have had to close their doors during the pandemic. To support these programs, QUALITYstarsNY has created a multi-part webinar [...]

Update September 28, 2021: QUALITYstarsNY is working with our independent assessment team to resume ERS observations for eligible Provisionally Rated programs beginning in early 2022. Visitor protocols will be taken into account as we work with participants to schedule ERS observations. Further details will be forth coming. Participating programs should stay tuned for future [...]