GRANITE FALLS — The Southwest Initiative Foundation (SWIF) held an in-person informational session about new proposed changes in licensing standards for in-home and child care centers in Granite Falls Tuesday.

The meeting welcomed feedback from the public including child care providers, economic development professionals and community leaders to give to the Department of Human Resources (DHS) to revise in their next draft, originally released on April 22, before presenting it to state legislators. Some proposed changes include updated and required water, radon and soil testing, toy lists, handling children behavior, cleaning and disinfecting schedules and guidelines for temperatures, construction, electrical services and more.

The overall concern from attendees broke down into new costs, policies being subjective and worries that the new licenses may drive providers to close down, causing more of a child care shortage.

The two-hour long meeting began with a short presentation on the new draft, and later broke into five rotating groups to discuss the topics of change while everyone was encouraged to write their concerns down on Post-it notes for the DHS to consider in their next round of revisions.

Several members of the DHS were present including licensing policy analyst Brandon Tice, licensing specialist Beth Donahue and deputy inspector general Alyssa Dotson.

Tice, who serves as a child care center regulation modernization lead on the project, opened the presentation.

“Those rule documents themselves (original child care policies) have not been updated since the 1980s,” Tice said. “They are not a legislative proposal right now. The next draft after your feedback, that is what we intend to propose in the 2025 legislative session.”

Although the current child care policies were not available on hand to decipher differences between the old and new draft, several concerns were still brought up in each topic.

Behavior guidance

Found under subdivision seven in prohibited actions, the policy states, “No child may be separated from the group unless the license holder has tried less intrusive methods of guiding the child’s behavior,” and details every separation must be documented.

Notes from attendees on the topic wrote suggestions such as, “Why prohibit immediately moving a child due to safety reasons?” “Why does every separation need to be documented? That is too much,” and “Can not be separated, even if they are causing harm?”

Comments were made consistently through the night about wanting more clarity on several of the guidelines.

Staff qualifications,

training, orientation

Child care providers must go through training and obtain specific qualifications to be licensed, which all are listed in the draft.

A participant was in attendance to support a coworker who has children in care centers.

“I know the biggest conversation she’s had with the director over there is the difficulty in getting staff,” the attendee said. “Some of this with the training and all, is also making it harder.”

Suggestions made in this section were about making training more flexible to access between in person and online, being easily accessible and questions on the amount of training required.

Notes from the breakout read, “reduce training expectations, wages are too low,” “50% child development — hard enough to staff, need more money to do so,” “Orientation needs to count towards yearly training hours,” and “50% credits in child development is limiting the staffing pool.”

Specific training requirements in the draft detail that directors should have at least 12 semester credits in post secondary child development education, teachers should have 12 semester credits with at least 50% of them in child development education and assistant teachers need at least six semester credits and 50 % of them also in child development.

Cleaning, sanitizing

and disinfecting

This topic was craving for more clarity by the attendees.

Under subdivision three in disinfectants, a policy reads, “The chemical must be effective against viruses,” however some were wondering exactly what viruses.

Another guideline under cleaning frequency details that indoor and outdoor equipment must be clean.

“I think it’s important to define clean,” an attendee said, who currently has children in a day care center. “If it’s because kids ran down and got some sand on a slide, well, that’s a whole different level of clean.”

With several Post-it notes on this topic, some detailed, “Carpet cleaning every six months is expensive,” “Free from dirt and rubbish is impossible,” “Too much, too many specifics,” and “Clean is subjective.”

Furnishings, equipment, materials and supplies

This section has specifics on how much equipment is needed for infants, toddlers, preschoolers and school-age children. The group consensus was there were too many requirements and the need for clarity on wording.

Participants discussed that “toy sets” and “an adequate amount” can be subjective, which both terms are used repeatedly.

Some proposed policies state how many toys are needed for each child under a variety of types, such as, “Two sets of manipulative equipment per child” for toddlers, “Five pieces of dramatic play equipment or sets per group” for preschoolers and more.

“There are too many requirements in the section,” an attendee who opened her own center in September said. “I think that overall, though.”

Suggestion notes varied from, “Ease up on required numbers, they will need to count everything all of the time,” “What is an adequate amount?,” and “Clarify between recommendations and licensing requirements.”

Facility and

environmental health

Concerns for this section were coming up for funding for the required testing if passed, which would require frequent radon, water and air checks. Also noted were other safety measures.

Notes from participants contained, “Who can and will pay for water testing? Some may not be able to afford,” “Radon testing, who is responsible?,” “Providing shade structures, who is paying for this?,” “(No use) of air fresheners, how do you make a toddler/infant room smell decent?”

Q&A

The meeting concluded with a short question and answer session. The costs of where the new requirements would come from was asked about.

“That’s the feedback that we need to hear, so that we can go to the legislature with this,” Dotson said. “This is feedback from providers that we can say, ‘Yeah, there is agreement around this standard, but the cost of it outweighs what the benefit is,’ so, that recommendation is maybe not to go forward with … Or to allocate money to cover the costs for centers to be able to do that.”

The DHS aims to have the next draft of proposals, incorporating new feedback, out by the beginning of November, before presenting it to the state early next year.