FVCC’s Early Childhood Center Earns National NAEYC Accreditation

Flathead Valley Community College’s Early Childhood Center has been recognized as one of the top programs in the nation by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). The center earned accreditation by NAEYC after completing an extensive three-year process.

NAEYC accreditation is a rigorous 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 early learning environments. Less than 10 percent of all child care centers, preschools and kindergartens in the nation have earned NAEYC accreditation.

“We are proud to have earned the mark of quality from NAEYC and to be recognized for our commitment to reaching the highest professional standards,” FVCC President Jane Karas said.

To earn NAEYC accreditation, FVCC’s Early Childhood Center went through an extensive 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 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 FVCC’s Early Childhood Center an exemplar of good practice for families and the entire community.”

For more information about FVCC’s Early Childhood Center, visit http://www.fvcc.edu/ecc.