An Open Letter to the Colorado Department of Early Childhood

August 12, 2025

An Open Letter to the Colorado Department of Early Childhood:

The Denver Director Equity and Advocacy Group consists of a group of 42 Denver child care center directors and administrators. We have been meeting monthly from September 2024 through May 2025. We have reviewed the Colorado Shines Evidence Guide and have recently learned that the Colorado Shines rating will be undergoing revision. We have compiled a list of recommendations from our group. 

Evaluations and Assessments for Programs 

  • We would recommend that in the new version, CLASS observations are utilized as opposed to ECERS and ITERS. We believe that in light of the reduction in funding for quality improvement and the current financial landscape for child care providers, it is unreasonable to utilize an observational tool that weighs so heavily on materials. Our group has identified scheduling, relationships, and interactions as the key points for observation around quality and we believe that CLASS is able to more accurately and appropriately achieve the same goals. We also recognize that CLASS is curriculum and philosophy agnostic so it is more appropriate for the various types of programs statewide and provides a more equitable lens for quality assessment. Please see the reference articles at the end of this letter for additional information and research. 
  • Currently, the level and number of young children in crisis with serious behavioral issues is skyrocketing and it is not getting better. Classrooms experiencing these behaviors can lose points during ECERS evaluations, whereas CLASS would be a more accurate tool to measure how teachers respond to these behaviors. Centers are doing all they can to manage and prevent extreme behaviors. An example one director experienced in the last 7 weeks is a 3-year old room with four volatile young boys. While support was engaged it still was a challenging seven weeks. Eventually, two children were asked to leave due to the serious danger they presented to themselves, classmates, and teachers (including extreme violence). If the program had been going through Colorado Shines, that particular room would not have received a decent score. CLASS allows for typical child disruptions and scores based on how the situation was handled. This is a more realistic way of evaluating teacher-child interactions and could reflect positively on a room’s score.

Systematic Changes

  • We recommend a system of rounding points up to the nearest tenth so that we are able to avoid programs being one point or less away from achieving the next level. We know that many programs put a lot of time and energy into the rating and feel that the current point system methodology can occasionally be perceived as unfair due to the point calculations. Not only is it disheartening for programs to be less than one point away from getting to the next level, but it lends providers to assume rater error (however small) kept them from getting a higher score. 
  • We also wanted to provide some input on the job descriptions for assessors. Although we know that the workforce is an issue even for assessors, we believe that there should be a heavier weight on experience as a director/teacher. We also believe that ECE-specific degrees should be weighted highly and/or assessors receive extensive training in ECE so they have relevant perspective on the classroom. 
  • We would recommend adding a written questionnaire to the rating process, as something in writing would be helpful for the program to provide and for the rater to receive in addition to the orientation call. We believe that both of these steps would provide context and prevent miscommunications. We would like this questionnaire to include questions around unique considerations for the program, as well as languages and other factors for the rating. 
  • We would like to advocate for a formal process for programs to request a re-rate if there were circumstances that led to perceived challenges during the rating. This would be only if a program goes down a level. 
  • We would request a process for providers to be updated with any changes to the Colorado Shines Rating evidence guide or process as currently directors in this group have noticed that the indicators change and most programs don’t have access to the live document. Currently changes to the evidence guidelines are not well communicated to child care providers. Although Denver’s Early Childhood Council hosts the L3-5 rating training, some providers are not able to attend daytime trainings. Providers outside of Denver do not always know about this training. Additionally, new information should somehow be highlighted or in a different color to make those reading the guide easily aware of changes or additions.

Equity Concerns 

  • We would appreciate an increase in equity around the Leadership, Management, and Administration (LMA) section. It seems that much of this area can be “crafted” based on what the rating is looking for and might not necessarily be authentic. Additionally, getting points based on benefits for staff is inequitable for programs. We would also suggest some part of the LMA section to include action items for directors and administrators to think about steps they can take in response to the items in the evidence section so that there is authentic reflection. 
  • We would like to see some of the items in the evidence guide that might be inequitable counted as optional bonus points due to a lack of funding or availability in different areas of the state. This might include bonus points for business coaching, points for benefits, points for NAEYC ratios, for example. We believe that there is inequity in some of the indicators previously mentioned that give an advantage to private and more well-funded programs in higher income areas as opposed to rural communities.
  • An informal poll of our group determined that the estimated cost for a rating in terms of unfunded materials, unfunded coaching, time for paperwork, staff time for preparation in the classroom, and staff time for navigation/coaching around the rating came out to a range of $8,000-$12,000 for the rating depending on the size of the program. 

We look forward to your consideration of our suggestions and written response which can be sent to our facilitator, Dora Esparza at Dora@Denverearlychildhood.org. We strive to advocate for a better quality improvement system and are looking forward to your actions based on our recommendations. 

Sincerely, 

The Denver Director Equity and Advocacy Group 

Facilitated by Denver’s Early Childhood Council 

References:

Bukhalenkova, Daria, et al. “Similarities and Differences between Class and Ecers-R Estimates of Educational Environment Quality.” Frontiers in Psychology, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 31 Aug. 2023, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10501724/#main-content.

“Use of Classroom Assessment Scoring System (Class®) in Head Start Programs.” HeadStart.Gov, 11 Feb. 2025, headstart.gov/designation-renewal-system/article/use-classroom-assessment-scoring-system-class-head-start-programs.