Minnesota Accreditation Task Force

Last Updated: March 13, 2007

Minnesota Accreditation Task Force History

MnAEYC began its work in accreditation by supporting the national organization (naeyc) with input and review of its newly developed tool.  Our members began this work early in 2004.  In early 2005 and in alignment with the new work on the Umbrella partnership, MnAEYC invited MLFCCA, MnSACA, and MCCA to for a joint task force to see what assistance we could provide our members in obtaining accreditation.  All of the tools developed at the national level in these organizations are new (developed in the last 5 years).  Our joint work will support a broad range of providers from family child care providers to center based providers to out of school programs (birth to 14).  We adopted the name, the Minnesota Accreditation Task Force.  Our current workgroup included—

• Annette W (New Horizon Child Care) 
• Beth Mork (MLFCCA) Beverly B (Rasmussen) 
• Chad Dunkley (MCCA) 
• Claire Chang (NAEYC/Saint Paul Foundation)
• Dea Anderson (Fraser) 
• Eileen Nelson (MDE)
• Diana Butzlaff (Consultant, MnAEYC and current paid NAEYC validator) 
• Gail Roberts (Chair, Consultant) 
• J. Watson (New Horizon Child Care) 
• Karin Swenson (Director, Meadow Park Day Care Center, Rochester) 
• Linda Ruesch (Presbyterian Church of the Way) 
• Lisa Walker (MnSACA) 
• Michelle Galvan (DHS)  
• Patty Finstad (Consultant)  
• Rachael Robertson (Knowledge Learning Corporation)
• Sandy Simar (Head Start Director, Rochester)
• Brian Siverson-Hall (MnSACA) 
• Dan Wielinski (Staff, MnAEYC)
• Barbara Wigstadt (TLC Early Learning Center)  

It made more sense to form a larger statewide assistance program to support these individuals (family child care, school age care, centers).  It also made sense to keep an eye on the progress of the Northstar Quality Improvement and Rating System plan (formerly known as QRS) since Level 4 of this plan is Accreditation.  Work over the past year has included looking at models in other states, doing comparisons between the programs (where they are similar, where they are different), studying the costs of the programs, what constituents need to progress to accreditation, and decisions on what nationally based accreditation programs to accept to our project (NAEYC, NAA, NAFCC).

Please see the results of the accreditation survey conducted in 2007:   Survey Results