Quality Counts California
Quality Counts California is a statewide, locally implemented quality rating and improvement system (QRIS) that funds and provides guidance to local and regional agencies, and other quality partners, to enhance their support of early learning and care providers. Quality Counts California helps these agencies improve the quality of early learning and care programs, and informs parents and families on what quality looks like and why it is important for young children.
Quality Counts California is a collaboration between First 5 California and the California Department of Education, Early Learning and Care Division, and is implemented at the county or regional level through a locally operated QRIS. Using a common set of early learning and care program standards, and general guidance developed collaboratively through a state and local partnership, each QRIS engages and supports voluntary participation of programs in its own geographic area.
For more information, or to access resources that were previously available on this website, please go to the Quality Counts California website at qualitycountsca.net.
Quality Counts California Local Consortia and Partnership Grants Request for Applications
The California Department of Education (CDE) and First 5 California (F5CA) invite local qualifying agencies to apply for the Quality Counts California (QCC) Local Consortia and Partnership Grants Request for Proposal (RFA). This unified RFA comes at a particularly exciting time for early learning and care in California, with historic new leadership, investment, and a comprehensive vision for an early childhood system from the Governor’s office.
The three-year investment from F5CA and CDE for this unified RFA is nearly $277 million to be distributed across local consortia representing all 58 counties. For F5CA, this amount includes the $103 million approved by the F5CA State Commission during their July 2019 Commission meeting. For CDE funding, the annual amounts are dependent on the annual budget act as well as amounts of federal Child Care and Development Block Grant and will be updated each July following the budget execution. In addition, this RFA incorporates new federal funds from the Preschool Development Grant Birth through Five Renewal (PDG-R) from the California Health and Human Services (CHHS) Agency designed to support local QCC implementation under a single QCC plan.
Please view the links below to get information on the RFA, its funding requirements, and key dates for the submission of a single application on behalf of your local consortia.
QCC Local Consortia and Partnership Grants RFA Documents