Major Policies that Guide NAEYC Academy Operations | National Association for the Education of Young Children | NAEYC Academy

NAEYC’s accreditation system strives to be a standard bearer for high quality early care and education programs. Towards this end, the NAEYC Academy works to (1) recognize early childhood programs that perform in compliance with the NAEYC Early Childhood Program Standards as demonstrated through satisfactory performance of the Accreditation Criteria and (2) be responsive to its multiple customers.

The NAEYC Academy establishes and maintains a clearly defined process for pursuing, achieving, and maintaining NAEYC Accreditation. The intent of the process will be to ensure that programs meet NAEYC’s definition of excellence for an early childhood program and increase the accountability of the system for children, families, and all customers of NAEYC Accreditation.

The term of accreditation shall be 5 years.

To recognize early childhood programs that have achieved NAEYC Accreditation and to make readily accessible to families and other customers, information on NAEYC accredited programs, the NAEYC Academy is obligated to ensure that a program’s accreditation status is advertised and verifiable in a way that accurately informs these customers.

Only currently NAEYC-accredited programs may use any symbol, logo, or reference to NAEYC Accreditation when publicly advertising their program.

During a program’s 5-year term of accreditation, the NAEYC Academy will establish procedures to ensure that its accredited programs maintain substantial compliance with the current early childhood program accreditation standards and criteria.

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