Qualistar Colorado

I want to preface this with a disclaimer that I am a former pre-​kindergarten teacher and quality rating specialist (I worked with Qualistar from 2008 – 2009), and when I happened upon the previous Unilocal comment I had to respond. These are my own words/​thoughts and not those of Qualistar.
Qualistar is an excellent institution to ensure Colorado’s youngest are being taken care of and given the most beneficial social and cognitive skill training in their early formative years, in addition to ensuring safety and health measures. I think it is a process and program Colorado should be proud of as centers not only receive a rating, but also thorough informative follow-​up reports and one-​on-​one meetings to explain the rating and discuss quality improvement goals for the future.
As noted by the previous commenter, the Qualistar rating system is rather stringent and may require some standards with reasons that aren’t apparent on their face (although there are some errors in the details provided, as appropriate hugs are encouraged, for example). This should be so, as early childhood education centers should be held to the highest standards.
It’s important to keep in mind, though, that to receive a favorable three or even perfect four stars, a center does not have to obtain a perfect score on each one of the indicators. There is plenty of flexibility in which a center that has excellent educational materials and safe equipment, for example, could still receive a favorable rating even if they don’t perfectly achieve handwashing standards (which is very common since it is a rather tedious requirement). And many have!
I had given four star ratings to small, in home providers who lacked a lot of the financial buttressing and had many more potential safety hazards than a traditional childcare center, but really excelled in other areas such as promoting language and social skills in the children. The full range of what is observed is what makes the Qualistar quality rating system very valuable and a good indicator of what a center does well and also where they could be putting in efforts to improve.
I wonder if the individual who left the previous comment was a childcare provider in or owner of a childcare center that did not receive the rating they desired. If this is the case, I hope that there were some take-​aways that were useful in your center’s continuing improvement. To everyone else, this is a really cool system that puts Colorado’s young children as a PRIORITY, an emphasis that is non-​existent in many other areas of the U.S., and a program to be emulated.