Parent Involvement and Quality Day Care in Proprietary Centers

Interrelationships among three measures of parent involvement, one of staff valuing parent-staff communication, and one of program quality being provided the children were examined in the infant/toddler and preschool classes of 16 proprietary centers. Measures of formal parent-staff communication and parent participation in the center derived from director interviews were significantly related to each other and to on-site observational measures of program quality indexing health and safety, peer-adult-child interactions, home-center coordination, and informal transition-time communication between parents and staff. These data and data regarding staff valuing parent-staff communication support the argument that directors who promote formal parent involvement are also more likely to run higher quality programs for the children and facilitate daily informal communication between parents and staff.