St. James first received accreditation from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) in the March of 2010. We voluntarily went through this rigorous process in order to continue to strengthen our already quality program for young children. NAEYC accredits early childhood programs according to health, safety and education standards. New standards, released in 2006, were intended to provide a more reliable and accountable accreditation system and to encourage the field of early childhood education to strive for a new level of excellence. We encourage families to learn more about NAEYC. Our school celebrates the “Week of the Young Child” each year in April and participates in special activities during this week.

Our school goes through the NAEYC re-accreditation process every five years.

St. James Nursery School decided to do the unusual in 2010. Unlike other preschools we decided to obtain a second accreditation. In June of 2012, St. James received program accreditation from the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE).

This is a process by which programs can significantly improve the quality of the services they provide. In this process, we voluntarily pursued self-study, program improvement, and external program review in order to achieve and publicly confirm that we meet national and state quality standards.

The accreditation process presents a clear, consistent strategy to improve the quality of care and education services. This strategy is “clear” because all participating programs implement a set process for program improvement, and it is “consistent” because programs operate with the same set of national or state standards.

Our school goes through the state’s re-accreditation process every three years.

In addition to our accreditations we have obtained an additional achievement from the Maryland Excels Program which recognizes child care and public prekindergarten programs that provide services over and above those outlined in the standards. We also have achieved the Eco-Friendly Achievement, Health and Wellness Recognition, Cultural and Linguistic Competency, Asthma Friendly Environment, and the Accredited Program achievements with Maryland EXCELS.

In order to ensure children are given a healthy start and are ready for success in kindergarten, programs that work to provide quality early learning environments, curriculum, and materials are approved to be included in the Child Care Aware Program. Through this program, for more than a decade, the Department of Defense (DoD) has provided fee assistance to eligible military families to offset the cost of child care in community programs through Military Child Care in Your Neighborhood (MCCYN) when on-installation child care was unavailable. If you are in the military and are able to use this fee assistance program St. James' Nursery School (Provider ID#: 2114400).