A recorded webinar on the 2022 Keystone STARS Performance Standards has been developed and is now available on the Pennsylvania Key website. The webinar provides information on the updates and edits that have been made to the 2022 Keystone STARS Performance Standards. 

As a reminder, the 2022 Keystone STARS Standards take effect on July 1, 2022. The Standards and accompanying resource documents can be found on the Keystone STARS page on the Pennsylvania Key website.

On July 1, 2022, the new process for Keystone STARS pre-designation and designation applications launches into Pennsylvania’s Professional Development (PD) Registry. Moving more functionality into the PD Registry streamlines multiple processes into one system and designation for providers. Read the full announcement – ELRC -22-03.

The PD Registry team invites directors, administrators, and owners of child care programs in Pennsylvania to a live demonstration of new system features. Register and learn more on the Designation Demonstration page on the Pennsylvania Key website.

This Friday, June 17, 2022, is the deadline to apply for the Work Force Support Grant. Providers who meet the eligibility guidelines can apply for funds to support expenses related to staff recruitment and retention costs. Learn more.

If you need assistance in updating details in the PA PD Registry in order to apply for the Work Force Grant, all tickets and phone calls to the Registry team must be submitted by Tuesday, June 14, 2022.

This will allow time for the Registry team to respond and support you in applying with your ELRC by the deadline, Friday June 17, 2022.

In order to be eligible to apply for the Workforce grant with your ELRC, staff must enter their profile information in the Registry.

This includes:

While staff DO NOT need to apply for Career Pathway to be eligible for the Workforce Grant, staff should complete their profile by applying for their Career Pathway at a later date in order to have a fully completed profile. 

 

For providers who close for the summer months, such as school-age only providers, their employees who meet all staff eligibility criteria at the time of application submission and will return to work in the fall, are eligible to receive the Staff Retention funds through the Work Force Support Grant.

These employees should be included on the application submitted to the ELRC.



Any provider who did not include these employees on their original application to the ELRC can resubmit the application with these employees added. 

If you received a message regarding unspent funding when trying to submit and finalize your programs spending report for the ARPA grant, please go back into the spending report after Friday, June 17 to submit and finalize. Please remember to add the capacity care level first before submitting. We apologize for this inconvenience as we discovered a bug within this final process.

On June 8, 2022, the Pennsylvania Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL) kicked off the virtual Summer Learning and Literacy Road Trip. During June – August 2022, early childhood professionals, community partners, and families with young children can discover highlighted Pennsylvania libraries and the resources available to support early literacy and learning. Learn more.