Programs participating in Texas Rising Star can work closely with a Texas Rising Star mentor to engage in a cyclical process that includes self-reflection, continuous learning, practice, and evaluation. CQI helps programs attain certification, achieve increasingly higher levels of quality, sustain high quality over time, and ensure high quality across classrooms and age groups.
Continuous Quality Improvement Plan
A Continuous Quality Improvement Plan (CQIP) provides a road map for continued quality improvement in which programs create in collaboration with the mentor. The program’s CQIP will also provide resources to help reach those improvement goals, including professional development coursework, coaching, and identification of other available resources and training material.
Texas Rising Star requires programs to initially develop CQIPs within the first few months of participating in Texas Rising Star. A CQIP will help the program maintain or improve its star level based on improvement goals for a targeted number of Texas Rising Star measures and/or categories. Mentors help update a program’s CQIP as needed, once programs achieve their goals. CQIPs can also address key areas for improvement that Texas Rising Star does not directly measure but are still important indicators of quality. These areas include: implementing inclusive caregiving practices, working with English language learners, and developing policies to prevent suspension and expulsion.
Boards assign each program a mentor who will work with the program to determine their specific needs and the best goals to incorporate in the CQIP over time. The amount of time a mentor spends on-site at the facility will vary based on their caseload and the program’s needs. At a minimum, the mentor will visit the program once a month, either in person or through a scheduled call or virtual meeting.
Programs choosing not to participate in mentoring services must create their CQIP per the CQIP Desk Aid (available on the Texas Rising Star Tools and resources webpage). Refer to the section below regarding Self-Developed CQIPs for more information.
Self-Developed CQIPs
Boards assign child care and early learning programs a mentor upon initial interest when starting the Texas Rising Star Certification Process. Programs may elect to move through the Texas Rising Star certification and maintenance process without a mentor. The program is still responsible for meeting all eligibility, and ongoing requirements, to include creating and maintaining a CQIP.
To assist these programs in creating a self-developed CQIP, the CQIP Desk Aid is available on the Tools and resources page. Programs must submit the self-developed CQIP with the Certification Request documents and update the CQIP before each assessment and as needed or applicable. Mentors will still be available to provide resources and supports.
Additional Continuous Quality Improvement supports
Texas Rising Star provides additional professional development resources and mentoring to support child care and early learning programs progress through and beyond the certification process. Alongside the Continuous Quality Improvement Plan (CQIP), Texas Rising Star programs have access to additional technical assistance throughout their certification process: Service Improvement Agreement (SIA) and targeted assistance for programs on Texas Rising Star screening impacts, to include probation or suspension status. These types of assistance are below.
Types of CQI assistance
Texas Rising Star assessors conduct unannounced, annual monitoring visits (annual monitoring) to ensure Texas Rising Star-certified programs are maintaining the level of quality reflected in their current star-level certification. If a program does not maintain their certified star level during their annual monitoring, an SIA will go into effect for six months to assist the program. SIAs give programs an opportunity to receive mentoring and supports before potentially losing a star level of Texas Rising Star certification at the next recertification assessment.
The mentor will collaborate with the program to update the CQIP, to provide targeted support for the Texas Rising Star categories that led to the SIA.
At the end of the mandatory six months (within 30days of the end date), an assessor conducts an SIA assessment on the Texas Rising Star categories found deficient to determine the new star level, if applicable.
Programs that participate in self-developed CQIPs must provide an updated CQIP to address the impact.
Mentors provide targeted technical assistance to support programs that are placed on a screening impact, such as a star-level drop, probation or suspension status, resulting from CCR licensing deficiencies.
- Probation A occurs when the program is cited for any one of the noted licensing deficiencies within Section 4 of the Texas Rising Star-Certified Screening Form.
- Probation B occurs when the program has incurred 26-40 total points from licensing deficiencies weighted high or medium-high which CCR has cited in the most recent six-month period.
- Suspension occurs when the program falls below Two-Star
The mentor will collaborate with the program, along with the program’s CCR representative for guidance on what technical assistance the mentor can provide, to update the CQIP to provide technical assistance for the mandatory six-month impact.
If the program is compliant with CCR during the mandatory six months, the impact is removed. If CCR cites additional licensing deficiencies within the six-month impact, the program may receive additional impacts.
Programs that participate in self-developed CQIPs must provide an updated CQIP to address the impact(s).
CLI Engage – free online resources for Texas Rising Star programs
TWC has partnered with the Children’s Learning Institute (CLI) at the UT Health Houston to provide free professional development tools and resources through an online platform – CLI Engage for child care and early learning programs participating in Texas Rising Star. These tools and resources will help to improve the quality of child care and early education that programs provide.
Features of CLI Engage include:
- Professional development courses, to include tracking completion of teacher’s professional development
- Child development and progress monitoring tools that provide data to target instruction and monitor child progress
- CIRCLE activity collection to include access to hundreds of lesson plans for classroom activities in the key learning domains (available in English and Spanish) as well as video exemplars
- Digital resource collection, a home to professional learning resources specific to Texas Rising Star measures, classroom implementation tools, and more
Access to CLI Engage:
To access CLI Engage resources and tools for Texas Rising Star programs, programs must register. After a program expresses interest in achieving Texas, Rising Star, the assigned mentor will send an email invitation to the program’s director to join CLI Engage. A link in the email invitation will go to the CLI Engage login screen. After logging in to CLI Engage, the user will access their school summary page, where they can review information about their program.