Palms Preschool & Childcare Center in Jacksonville Beach has earned accreditation from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) — the world's largest organization working on behalf of young children.
“We are very proud to once again be recognized by NAEYC as a top-quality program,” said Lauren Lee, director of Palms Preschool & Childcare Center. “This honor speaks to all the hard work our teachers, staff, families and students have contributed to our school, and motivates us to continue using best practices and meeting only the highest of standards for our students.”
NAEYC accreditation is a quality-improvement system that uses a set of 10 research-based standards to collaborate with early education programs to recognize and drive quality-improvement in high-quality early learning environments.
To earn NAEYC accreditation, Palms Preschool & Childcare Center went through a self-study and quality-improvement process, followed by an on-site visit by NAEYC assessors to verify and ensure that the program met each of the 10 program standards, and hundreds of corresponding individual criteria. NAEYC-accredited programs are always prepared for unannounced quality-assurance visits during their accreditation term, which lasts for five years.
In the 30 years since NAEYC accreditation was established, it has become a widely recognized sign of high-quality early childhood education. More than 7,000 programs are currently accredited by NAEYC, which means less than 10 percent of all child care centers, preschools, and kindergartens nationally achieve this recognition.
“NAEYC-accredited programs bring our definitions of excellence for early childhood education to life each day,” said Kristen Johnson, senior director of early learning program accreditation at NAEYC. “Earning NAEYC accreditation makes Palms Preschool & Childcare Center an exemplar of good practice for families and the entire community.”
Established in 1985, Palms Preschool’s goal is to provide an environment that nurtures a positive learning experience, one in which the preschool child may feel secure and happy away from home and provide an opportunity to build and maintain a positive self-concept so that he/she may develop to his/her greatest potential – intellectually, physically, socially, spiritually and emotionally.
For more information about NAEYC accreditation, visit the NAEYC website at www.naeyc.org/academy.
