About Learn & Grow
Learn & Grow is Alaska’s Quality Recognition & Improvement System (QRIS) that provides early childhood education (ECE) programs with comprehensive resources and supports to continuously improve their quality of care. At the same time, Learn & Grow serves as a mechanism for families to gauge the level of quality of individual programs when looking for care for their children.
Learn & Grow also provides families, communities, and policy makers with an understanding of what quality early childhood education is and the impact it can have on children’s development and readiness to learn and succeed in life.
Why Should My Program Participate?
As high-quality early care and education grows in Alaska, parents are taking notice of the benefits of Learn & Grow programs.
Staying actively engaged in quality improvement takes time, dedication, and resources. So when an early childhood education program voluntarily enrolls itself in Learn & Grow, it receives support to participate in the required continuous quality improvement activities.
Supports include:
- Develop program and classroom plans designed to support a programs quality improvement goals.
- Training and technical assistance for classroom teachers to create healthy, safe, child directed, and engaging learning environments to support children’s development.
- Training and technical assistance for administrators to support program management & culture and business practices designed to retain and recruit staff.
- Provide financial awards to support professional development, purchase of materials and/or equipment, or other quality expenses.
- Marketing and communication materials to promote program and communicate with families and communities.
How Does it Work?
Learn & Grow recognizes five levels of quality in early childhood education programs. Each level consists of four quality domains, all of which have a unique set of standards and required activities. The focus of these activities includes positive teacher-child interactions, proper use of research-based curriculum and child assessments, increasing teacher education, and creating nurturing learning environments.
Early childhood education programs must complete all of the quality requirements of a given level to achieve the level recognition. Programs must maintain those quality requirements in order to renew their status each year.
For more frequently asked questions and answers about Learn & Grow, click here.