Duration: 58 minutes
Status: Now available on demand

The Texas Rising Star (TRS) system—the state’s Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS)—has recently shifted greater focus toward caregiver-child interactions as a core measure of early learning quality. In this recorded webinar, leaders from Workforce Solutions for North Central Texas share how they’ve embraced this shift by integrating LENA Grow into their quality improvement and coaching work with local child care providers.

Learn how LENA Grow is helping educators improve interaction quality, how coaching strategies are producing measurable results, and why TRS’s evolution reflects a broader trend in early childhood education across the country.

Key takeaways:

• How Workforce Solutions has implemented LENA Grow to boost TRS outcomes
• Coaching strategies that led to an 89% increase in conversational turns for underserved children
• Why TRS increased the weight of teacher-child interactions in its assessment
• What the TRS model reveals about national QRIS trends

Panelists:

Morgan Armstrong
Child Care Quality Program Supervisor, Workforce Solutions for North Central Texas
With 18 years in early childhood education, Morgan now oversees TRS mentoring efforts across North Central Texas and brings deep experience in program leadership and staff development.

Ada Gonzales
Early Childhood Mentor, Workforce Solutions for North Central Texas
Ada has served in nearly every child care role and currently supports quality improvements through mentoring, with expertise in family studies and early childhood administration.

Kelli Halle
Senior Early Childhood Specialist, Workforce Solutions for North Central Texas
Kelli brings over two decades of multi-state experience in early childhood education and now focuses on workforce training and quality assessment in Texas’s QRIS framework.