School-Age Care Environment Rating Scale (Sacers Spiral Edition)

Product Information

When school-age children are combined with preschool children in the afternoons, the ages of the majority of children enrolled will determine if a SACERS-U is needed. If the majority of children are school-age, a SACERS-U assessment will be completed, even if there are some younger children enrolled. Activities (e.g. provision of an exciting and accessible learning environment, resources to support specific types of play) School-Age Care Environment Rating Scale, Updated edition - For children age 5 year through 12 years

For the ERS assessment process, a program’s operating hours are determined based on when the program opens and closes, rather than a shorter time period when specific programming occurs. Therefore, the earliest time any children are allowed to attend, until the time the program closes are the program’s operating hours. Prepare your facility to maximize the assessment process through quality enhancements. Any changes should reflect the best practices for young children and should improve the quality of the program on an ongoing basis. Remember, it often takes time to change behaviors and practices, so assessment preparation should be viewed as an ongoing process, rather than a short term activity. For example, there is one toddler room, one preschool room, and one afterschool group. An ITERS-R, ECERS-R, and SACERS-U assessment will be needed, so each room will be assessed.

Which Environment Rating Scale is used to assess a small center in a residence?

The Environment Rating Scales (ERS) are an observational assessment that assess the process quality of a program. Process quality is what the children are directly experiencing in their program and how it has a direct effect on their development. There are 4 (four) different tools that are used in the ERS: the Infant and Toddler Environment Rating Scale (ITERS), the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS), the Family Child Care Environment Rating Scale (FCCERS) and the School Age Care Environment Rating Scale (SACERS). All 4 (four) of the scales are set up the same way to make learning the different scales easier, but the content in each scale is based off of the age group that the scale was created for.

The ECERS-R is used in classrooms where the majority of children are 31 months old and older. The ITERS-R is used when the majority of children are younger than 31 months of age. If a classroom enrollment is exactly half and half (e.g., 3 of 6 children are 30 months or younger and 3 children are 31 months and older) then the ITERS-R will be used. There are several standard documents that you should be aware and your consultant may have other documents related to the program standards portion of the NC Star Rated License. These documents are available under the "Resources" menu and include:

ERS Virtual TA Cohorts: Participants have the opportunity to collaborate with peers, as they obtain resources and support through professional development and technical assistance in a cooperative group setting. Cohorts have specific application periods where you can sign up. If additional assessments are needed to reach 1/3 of the total classrooms, additional assessment(s) will be needed starting with the age/scale group that has the most classrooms. When 1/3 of that age group has been represented, additional assessment(s) will be added for the next largest age/scale group, as needed, until the total number needed is reached. Most important, the SACERS is an adaptation of the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS) (Harms & Clifford, 1980). The SACERS is similar in format to the ECERS, the Family Day Care Rating Scale (FDCRS) (Harms & Clifford, 1989), and the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale (ITERS) (Harms, Cryer, & Clifford, 1990), but the content is specific to the school-age care group. For example, if a facility has 1-4 preschool classrooms then 1 ECERS-R assessment is needed. However, if there are 5, 6, or 7 preschool classrooms then 2 ECERS-R assessments are needed.

The smallest number of children that can be assessed is two and if only two children are enrolled, then both must be present during the assessment. If only one child is enrolled, an assessment will not occur. Both the ECERS-R and ITERS-R were developed by Thelma Harms, Richard Clifford and Debby Cryer at the University of North Carolina. The ERS are structured, observation based classroom assessments that providecomprehensive coverage of the environment experienced by children (e.g., physical environment, language-reasoning, interactions, program structure, health and safety). For programs that include a specific curriculum day (e.g., 8:00-2:30), wrap-around or before/after care hours operated under the same license will be considered, even if separate fees are required. Therefore, it is important for teachers to be aware of what the children enrolled in their classroom experience or would experience at these other times if they attended the extended day programming, even when another teacher is responsible for the children. This helps insure that children have appropriate experiences, indoors and outdoors, with much time for child-selected learning and consistent expectations.Progressive Training and TA Program: Programs an opportunity to participate in focused and facilitated training and technical assistance. Progressive programs receive individualized technical assistance to improve program quality. The assessor will arrive when the center or home opens or when children are arriving. Before the observation begins, the assessor will typically greet the owner/director andprovide an overview of the day. In child care centers that have multiple classrooms for one of the more of the rating scales, classrooms to be assessed are chosen on the day of each assessment using random selection. How is it decided how many assessments are needed and which classrooms are assessed in a child care center? Administrators are likely to have discussion with teachers in each classroom and encourage staff to share their experiences and strategies with each other. Group problem-solving can be helpful. If there are times of the day that tend to be more challenging or there are other predictable "higher need" times or situations, consider whether other program level resources, such as strategically using additional staff at these times, could be used to support teachers and enhance the functioning of each classroom. My program has NC Pre-K and Head Start classrooms and also some private-pay classrooms. Are the operating hours different for each classroom or the same?

Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale, Revised - For children 31 months (e.g., over 2 1/2 years) through 5 years The observation will continue for at least 3 hours when using the ITERS-R, ECERS-R, and FCCERS-R, but is also likely that a longer observation will occur. For after school assessments using the SACERS-U, the observation will continue for at least 2 hours, but may last longer during assessments that occur on full days such as during the summer. During the visit, the assessor will observe and take notes on a wide variety of interactions, activities, and materials as required by the rating scale. For example, the assessor will observe indoor and outdoor spaces for play and routine care, materials used by the children, health practices, staff/child interactions, and so on.Assessors may also take photographs of the indoor/outdoor spaces and materials as part of their documentation. This generally occurswhen children are not using the space andchildren will not be photographed. No one component is more or less important than the others, nor can one substitute for another. It takes all three to create quality care. Each of the three basic components of quality care manifests itself in tangible forms in the program's environment, curriculum, schedule, supervision and interaction, and can be observed. These are the key aspects of process quality that are included in our environmental rating scales.School age children need to be in care for at least two hours each afternoon before a SACERS-U assessment can be completed. Beyond that consider the following: In both the United States and Canada, elementary schools, community and recreation centers, preschool child care centers, and family child care homes have responded to this obvious need for supervision during out-of-school hours by developing school-age care programs. Both the facilities and the program content differ from one program to another. Some programs focus on recreational activities so that the children can have the same extracurricular opportunities that are available to children who return home at the end of the school day. Others focus on enhancing children's learning by offering a more academically oriented program. In yet other programs, there is an emphasis on the creative arts including the visual arts, music, and drama. One must also consider that school-age child care programs enroll children from 5 to 12 years of age. Given this broad age range, it is essential to offer activities that meet the widely differing needs and interests of children over a 7-year age span. At least one assessment will be needed per applicable scale.If there is only one classroom that fits into the age guideline of a rating scale, then that classroom will be assessed.