Quality Connections Rated Programs

San Francisco Quality Connections encourages supportive relationships, building a caring community of learners where all children, early educators, and family members are valued and included. We support early educators to strengthen, reflect, and improve their instructional practices, helping them to create learning environments that support children’s age-appropriate growth and development.

Quality Connections measures specific elements of quality and then gives programs star ratings based on how well the program met each of the elements. A program can receive between 1 and 5 stars. Every program that participates in Quality Connections is committed to ongoing quality improvement and is receiving coaching, training, and other assistance in the areas where it wants to improve.

It is important to remember that quality ratings are one thing to consider when choosing child care. There may be other factors that are important to your family’s child care decision.

Quality Connections measures quality in these seven elements:

1. Child Observation: How does a program use assessments to better understand what its children need to learn?
2. Developmental and Health Screenings: How does a program check children for health and developmental concerns and follow up on any identified issues?
3. Teacher/Family Child Care Home Qualifications: What levels of education and training do the teachers have?
4. Teacher-Child Interactions: How do the teachers support children’s development through their interactions with them?
5. Teacher-Child Ratios and Group Size: How many teachers and children are in each classroom?*
6. Program Environment: How do the classrooms and materials help children’s development?
7. Director Qualifications: What levels of education and training does the program director have?**

*Family child care homes are not measured in this element. They are required to follow licensing requirements that specify ratios and maximum group sizes.

**Family child care homes are not measured in this element. The family child care home provider’s qualifications are measured by element 3.

Program Name

Program Type
Any Program TypeCenterFamily Child Care Home / Educator

Zip Code

Star Level
1 or More2 or More3 or More4 or More5

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