State rules add to home day care challenges

By Britta Arendt

The Minnesota Legislature is currently considering several proposed changes to rules and regulations regarding child care as part of the Child Care Regulation Modernization Project. These include proposed licensing standards, stakeholder engagement efforts, training requirements for non-licensed family child care providers, standardized inspections and risk-based monitoring for compliance of standards.

For a long time, family childcare providers have expressed concern about stringent limits to the number of infants and toddlers that they have in their care. The expansion of free Pre-K has also meant that while providers are losing older children to publicly funded programs, they cannot increase the number of younger children in their care.

In response, the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Family (DCYF) is proposing several changes that allow for the care of more infants/toddlers depending on the type of license and size of program.

“Currently providers can apply for age distribution or capacity variances,” explained Stoltz. “If the infant/toddler spots were increased, that would help families out tremendously.”

Proposed, restructured license classes (C1-C4) would allow for an additional infant or toddler in specific family child care scenarios, maintaining or slightly increasing overall capacity to 10–18 children depending on the license type.

The changes are in response to requests for capacity increases, yet the state association representing family child care providers maintains that the additional documentation DCYF is requiring makes the proposal “operationally burdensome and not workable in a family child care setting.”

The Minnesota Association of Child Care Professionals (MACCP) claims the provisions extend beyond core health and safety protections and instead regulate the daily operations of small, home-based businesses who cater to the needs of their communities. As a result, the MACCP foresees increased cost and regulatory risk for providers, a reason driving some providers to close their business.

When the state tried to implement major changes to family child care requirements a couple years ago, Stoltz said she was tasked with ridiculous paperwork “such as documenting if a bug in her house, keeping the thermostat at a specific temp, cleaning toilets daily, refrigerators once a month, documenting it all. There would be no time to watch kids. We already wear the hats of lunch lady, principal, janitor, teacher, etc.”

Both Mostoller and Stoltz say the paperwork required by the state is overwhelming, unnecessary, and fit to serve larger centers where documentation is managed during the day by center staff and employees get paid to complete training. Should DCYF allow them to taken on more infants, neither will.

Mostoller knows she cannot take more than one infant at a time and Stoltz is reserving her infant spot for a baby grandson.

“It’s difficult to do anything else with the other kids and/or meet my Parent Aware requirements with an infant in care, so I stay within my known limits,” explained Mostoller who believes just because providers are allowed to accommodate more infants/toddlers doesn’t mean they should. “Responsible and respectful care should always be a priority.”

The number of Minnesota’s in-home family child care providers is half of what is was a decade ago, down to 5,600 from 10,000, according to DCYF. The decline has been steady, particularly in rural communities, significantly reducing child care access throughout the state. Currently, there are 64 providers located in Itasca County offering in-home child care.

Stoltz feels like the state is pushing out in-home providers to make room for free preschool.

 “Parents should have the right to choose what works best for them,” she added.

This week, the Blandin Foundation announced a partnership with the Itasca County Family YMCA, Minnesota North College, and Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board to provide customized, hands-on, credentialed training for the Y’s childcare staff. The foundation says this training will support professional growth and strengthen relationships with child care families.