Original Article: Philadelphia Tribune by Wilford Shamlin III

Diversified Community Services operates two childcare centers, both of which have been distinguished with four Keystone STARS.

While Otis Bullock, executive director of the nonprofit agency, is proud of the designation, he understands how difficult it can be for other facilities to achieve such status. He understands the challenge they face even as Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney makes a push for early childhood education that could provide pre-Kindergarten service to all of the city’s 3- and 4-year-olds.

“A four-star Keystone STAR rating is the highest level you can reach,” Bullock said of the state ranking. “One of the challenges in running a high-quality center, with a three- or four-STAR rating, is the cost.”

While Otis Bullock, executive director of the nonprofit agency, is proud of the designation, he understands how difficult it can be for other facilities to achieve such status. He understands the challenge they face even as Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney makes a push for early childhood education that could provide pre-Kindergarten service to all of the city’s 3- and 4-year-olds. “A four-star Keystone STAR rating is the highest level you can reach,” Bullock said of the state ranking. “One of the challenges in running a high-quality center, with a three- or four-STAR rating, is the cost.”

Still, he’s a fan of the initiative that was designed to improve, support and recognize quality improvement in Pennsylvania’s early childhood programs. “The Keystone STARS system is a great tool to establish the basic level of quality for early childhood education centers, [and] professional development opportunity for my staff,” said Bullock.

According to the well-known High/Scope Perry Preschool study, children who attend structured programs before kindergarten are better prepared to achieve academic success, complete high school and earn higher wages. This is particularly true for children from low-income backgrounds.

National research also shows that investing in pre-Kindergarten translates into savings down the road through reduced crime rate, less dependence on public assistance and on special education.

“If done right, universal pre-K will provide deep and lasting benefits for the families and residents of Philadelphia,” a report by the city’s Commission on universal pre-Kindergarten stated. There are about 42,500 3- and 4-year-olds in Philadelphia. Just one in three of them have access to affordable quality pre-K, the report stated.

Expansion of quality pre-K is currently limited by a number of issues, the report said, listing insufficient funding, lack of an adequately trained workforce, lack of quality facilities in locations convenient to families, and the need for recurrent funding for families who cannot afford quality pre-K, it said.

The cost of quality pre-K is about $12,000 per child, depending on how much time the child spends in care, it stated. State subsidies offer some assistance, but not nearly enough.

Improving the quality of pre-K in Philadelphia could be helped by increased participation in Keystone STARS, the report said. It urged development of an outreach strategy to teach providers about the program, and to help them gain access to resources toward improving their facility and better training their staff.
This one of the objectives of “Success by Six.” Dubbed SB6, the initiative lists its mission as helping with kindergarten readiness and guiding early childhood education centers in improving learning spaces, classroom activities and other educational supports.

A study of SB6, part of a recently released 44-page report titled “Improving Quality for Child Care Centers in Greater Philadelphia,” was led by the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey. It showed about half of the nearly 370 child care centers improved their rating in the Keystone Stars rating system.
“In the past eight years, SB6 … has achieved an overall success rate of 60 percent regionally and 46 percent in Philadelphia,” according to the report’s executive summary.

The report also prompted researchers to focus on the reasons that almost half of those participants failed to move up at all, based on performance against a checklist of Keystone STARS standards. It discovered that size matters.

Researchers said the size of a child care center “emerged as a predictor of the STARS move-up profiles of centers in SB6.” And “move-up ratings” were highest among large centers that served at least 100 children, even when those sites had baseline scores similar to other child care centers.

Bullock called Diversified — which provides a suite of services to mostly low-income households including housing retention and utility bill assistance, to parenting and financial literacy — well-positioned to provide quality child care as a “bigger, multi-functional organization.”

Its Dixon Learning Academy, at 2201 Moore St., has an enrollment of 96 preschoolers, 41 toddlers and 50 pupils who attend after-school and summer enrichment programs. Western Learning Center, at 1613 South St., has 80 preschoolers, 22 toddlers and 25 pupils who attend after-school and summer enrichment programs.

Bullock said the nonprofit agency has worked to grow enrollment. National accreditation standards have required more employees and higher levels of education, which translated into higher salaries and increased operating costs.
A child care service provider with a room for infants must keep in line with the ratio of one teacher to three infants, Bullock said. The standard requires an additional hire if a fourth infant is enrolled, Bullock explained.

“That’s a fixed cost that you’re having to pay to keep those ratios, and you have to keep those ratios to keep quality standards,” Bullock said, adding a certain percentage of employees must have a bachelor’s degree or other educational credentials, driving personnel costs higher.

The agency has absorbed financial losses on both learning centers but directs profits from other operations in order to maintain child care services at premium levels and stay in compliance with rigorous state standards set by the Keystone STARS program.
“We’re able to offset some of the losses we take in child care from other revenue streams,” Bullock said. “Not everyone is able to do that.”

Bullock suggests higher reimbursements for compliance with state quality-assurance standards as an added incentive to both larger and smaller child care service providers with the result being improving quality of child care services across the industry.

He said operational costs are often passed onto families who are looking for an affordable, quality early education program, contributing to kindergarten readiness and a solid foundation for success for their entire lifetime, starting from the early grades.

Researchers involved with SB6 point out that consultation time and program improvement funds are awarded based on pupil enrollment or the number of classrooms. They’re exploring whether larger learning centers are more adept at using their resources more effectively or “simply improving because they have more resources,” according to the report.

United Way received funding support from William Penn Foundation, which also partnered on an separate initiative to increase high-quality seats in pre-kindergarten programs across the city. The effort led to an interactive map, www.childcaremap.org, intended to make it easier for families to locate child care centers, check their Keystone Stars rating and peruse other relevant information about the surrounding neighborhood.

It includes information on households, including race and ethnicity, gives indications of tax-filing status, number of dependents, household income, level of education and whether children attend public or private school.

It also helps businesses considering opening child care centers where demand is highest or most scarce, according to officials from the Reinvestment Fund, which partnered with Public Health Management Company and William Penn Foundation on the initiative.

Whatever the challenge, it’s one Bullock said Diversified is determined to meet.
“Research shows children who start behind never catch up and that leads to them being behind in third grade, in writing, reading and doing math,” he said. Struggling students are more likely to make decisions that bring punitive actions that push them out of the formal school system into criminal justice or alternative educational settings — an outcome called the school-to-prison pipeline, predominantly affecting Black and Latino males.

“It’s within our mission that children and families get the best start they can early, and to avoid that [pipeline],” Bullock said.