Because children need to be in a clean, safe environment.
Holding a National Accreditation doesn’t just demonstrate transparency and independent evaluation. National Accreditation confirms that Open Doors Preschool provides a clean, safe environment. Health and safety must be the priority of any quality child care center.
Bare Minimum Child Care or Quality Child Care?
“The state of Florida statutes include minimum standards for child care health and safety. It is up to the Department of Children and Families, specifically, Child Care Licensing to inspect each center to be sure that they are keeping those minimum standards. When a center like ours is nationally accredited, we are going above and beyond those minimum standards. We are always working toward a healthier and safer program. We don’t believe that bare minimum is acceptable for our families,” states Master Teacher, Miss Ann Powell.
Healthier, Safer Child Care
Parents who visit the classrooms in Open Doors Preschool immediately recognize the difference–especially those who have experienced “minimum child care.” The usual comments are: “Wow! Your class sizes are smaller here!” or “It’s so much more spacious and clean!” These things are just part of the difference that accreditation offers.
But Don’t Take Our Word For It
Our staff upholds the highest standards of health and safety every day. Beyond that, we document our compliance and have our compliance routinely and independently reviewed. This means that families don’t have to take our word for it, both the National Accreditation Commission and the Department of Children and Families have verified our status as a safe and healthy center.
“There are centers out there that make claims toward health & safety, but at the end of the day, they cannot do what we do here at Open Doors. Why? I really don’t know. For us, we don’t see the licensing and accreditation process as something to be avoided,” says founder, Rachel McIntyre. “It’s something that we feel we must maintain. We don’t cut corners. Any center can achieve national accreditation, but it begins with making the wellbeing of our students and families our priority.”
I like how you said that licensing and accreditation confirms that a preschool has a clean and safe environment, which should be the priority of any child care center. I have a friend from my church group who is thinking about opening a child care center soon, so I’ve been looking for tips that might help her be successful. I’ll suggest she look into getting accredited so parents will trust that she provides a safe environment.