Michelle Long

The Program Administration Scale (PAS) has gained a great deal of popularity amongst center administrators and providers over the past year. Virtual Professional Development sessions have been filling up within hours of posting. With the increased awareness and usage of the PAS, we thought you may be interested in a PAS Corner section here on the BLOG. In this section we will highlight different definitions of terms, subscales, items, and indicators to support you in your use and understanding of the Instrument.

For this installment we are going to focus on the term “System”. This term is repeated frequently throughout the PAS scale. The term includes three components:

• Tangible concrete evidence
• Involvement of multiple Individuals
• Defined process of accountability

So, what does all of that really mean?

In a nutshell it means that there are procedures in place to include checkpoints to ensure that what you say will happen, actually happens.

For example: An evacuation drill is needed every month. As a director, I have a note (most likely a post-it note) reminding me when I need to conduct the drill. I pick up the hand bell, walk through the halls, stating the location and nature of the pretend threat. Everyone evacuates and I record the time on a log.

Now, imagine that I was in a terrible accident and was hospitalized. There is no post-it reminder on my desk. How is anyone else supposed to know when to hold the drill, how to conduct the drill, what information to record, etc.

If I had a system in place, there would be:

• Tangible concrete evidence (EX: procedures/policy regarding evacuation drills, scheduled calendar appointment, log)
• Involvement of multiple individuals (EX: Assistant Director and Health & Safety Coordinator also have the scheduled calendar appointment and each person is assigned a role for the evacuation)
• Defined Process of Accountability (EX: The calendar appointment is set to prompt a reminder prior to the event.

In my absence, both the Assistant Director and Health & Safety Coordinator have the scheduled appointment, the policy/procedures to follow, and what my role in the drill was so that they are able to ensure that all steps are followed.)

The following link will take you to an additional article about systems by Jill Bella from the McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership. https://mccormickcenter.nl.edu/library/developing-systems/