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Most providers found the technical assistance support they received as part of the assessment process to be helpful, although there were some challenges

• TAs supported providers on a variety of topics, including how to prepare for the assessment, and what sites' tier ratings meant.
• The majority of surveyed providers found the assessment technical assistance support helpful. A portion of providers expressed some challenges, such as limited time to meet with their TA and having questions that their TA could not answer.
• Forty-one percent of surveyed QSLA providers did not know their tier rating. This lack of knowledge was concentrated among classroom staff.
• Some providers, especially family child care (FCC) providers, perceived the assessment process to be unfair or challenging, while other providers felt the process was manageable.

Similarly, providers were very positive about the coaching support they received, although logistical challenges remained

• The majority of surveyed providers reported that the amount of coaching they received was "about right."
• Providers' busy schedules presented logistical challenges to scheduling coaching sessions.
• Coaches and providers addressed a variety of topics during coaching sessions, and coaches used multiple methods, most commonly observation and feedback, to promote growth and improvement.
• Surveyed providers were overwhelmingly positive about their coaching experience. They described the importance of a positive coaching relationship and reported that coaching helped improve their practice.
• Some coaching challenges emerged, including limited time to meet, providers' perceptions that coaching was not always helpful, and coach and early care and education provider staff turnover.

RAND researchers conducted a developmental evaluation of Quality Start Los Angeles (QSLA), the voluntary quality rating and improvement system for early learning providers in Los Angeles County. The goal of the evaluation was to determine whether selected components of the QSLA model were feasible, appropriate, and being implemented as designed. The evaluation focused on two topics: (1) the QSLA assessment process and tier ratings and (2) QSLA coaching. The RAND study team engaged in multiple data-collection and research activities from February 2019 through March 2020, including a survey of early learning providers; administrative data analysis; observations of coaching sessions; and focus groups and interviews with early learning providers, coaches, technical assistants (TAs), and other QSLA stakeholders.

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