BY BRAD A. HODGES
SALISBURY POST

Working parents leave their children with Angela Hayworth each day. She knows the responsibility is enormous.

Hayworth, who watches children at her house on Faith Road, spent nights in college classes for four years to earn an associate degree in early childhood development.

“I don’t think of myself as a baby sitter,” said Hayworth, watching four preschoolers play together in a front room of her house. “I think of myself as a child-care provider. It’s a profession.”

Hayworth is among just 1.5 percent of North Carolina’s home-based day-care businesses that have received five of five stars under the state’s new rating system. And hers is the only one in Rowan County.

But two years after state inspectors switched from rating day-care businesses with a simpler “A” or “AA,” far more day-care operators fall at the bottom of the new five-star scale.

Thirty-four of Rowan County’s 44 day-care homes such as Hayworth’s — businesses with fewer than eight children — have earned just one star, meaning they meet only minimum requirements.

Among larger day-care centers — those with more than five preschool children and three of school age — 17 of Rowan County’s 53 have one star. And 15 more are still ranked A or AA, state records show.

Some operators have chosen to ignore or put off applying for the new star ratings. Those automatically get one star.

“For some reason there’s just a general lack of support to apply for the star-rated process,” said Lori McFate, who runs the three-star day-care center at St. John’s Lutheran Church. McFate heads the Child Development Professional Alliance, a network of Rowan County day-care operators.

“If they’re going to get one star anyway, it’s a lot easier just to go ahead and get hit with it rather than apply,” she said. “But they need to have it done and go ahead and try for two or three stars.”

While many day-care operators have shown little interest in the new ratings, the state has lagged in evaluating and grading centers and homes. Businesses that keep preschool children were supposed to apply for the new licenses by Sept. 1, 2000. As of Thursday, many in Rowan County still had an A or AA license.

McFate applied in March 2000 and was evaluated the following month. She didn’t find out her new rating until last October.

“The state is very much behind in evaluating centers and getting the ratings,” McFate said. “I called them. I hounded them to come.”

Vicky Miller, director of a program at First United Methodist Church in China Grove, applied for a three-star rating but just got an application from the state Friday. “There’s definitely a backlog,” she said.

Diane Robinson runs the East Spencer Head Start center and doesn’t even expect a visit from a state inspector until April.

The N.C. Division of Child Development began issuing the new type of license in April 1999. Centers earn from one to five stars based on the education of teachers and staff and their ratio to children enrolled, the amount of space and furnishings, personal care routines, how language and reasoning skills are taught, activities, interaction of children with each other and with the staff, and the center’s history of compliance with child-care laws.

Similar to the state’s ABCs of Public Education, a scoring program for public schools, the new day-care ratings have financial incentives. Operators can get bonuses and their staff can get monthly pay supplements. After their first six months of employment, the state will send employees as much as $50 per month if they’ve received two child-care courses and up to $450 a month for those with a master’s degree.

Despite the perks, Hayworth has the only five-star home in Rowan County. The Early Childhood Center at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College remains the only day-care center in Rowan County given five stars. Paddy’s Club House on N.C. 49 is Cabarrus County’s only five-star center or home.

For Hayworth, who decided to pursue a five-star rating, the new system stands as a way to prove to parents her credibility. Having already earned an associate degree, she now wants to pursue a bachelor’s degree.

“We prepared for a year before the observer came,” Hayworth said. “It’s a lot of work if you are trying to get five stars.”

Anna Carter, who oversees the ratings program, admits that state regulators have a backlog of applications for the new licenses. But she sees participation positively.

“Look at it this way. We have so many that have participated,” she said. “...It certainly is going to be our goal next to work with the ones that have one star and help them understand all that’s involved with the process.”

Day-care operators interviewed say that their profession is one that offers little profit, and reducing employee-child ratios costs money. Most employees already make close to minimum wage and have few benefits, said McFate. Her church’s center, she noted, operates on a “zero” budget.

But as parents start to notice the star ratings more, operators may care more about how they score. Similar to the way restaurants must post health ratings, centers and homes must post their certificates in a prominent place.

“The main goals of the star ratings is to give parents a better way to select a provider,” Carter said. “It’s a beginning tool. You don’t just say, ‘How many stars do you have?’ But it does give them a framework.”