Finding licensed child care in Central Minnesota is becoming more and more difficult.
The number of home child care providers has been decreasing in recent years, and has accelerated in the past two years after new regulations were passed by the Minnesota Dept. of Human Services.
“We’ve seen a big decline in providers,” says Heather Knutsen, the child care licensor with Sherburne County Health & Human Services.
In 2009, when she became the county’s only licensor, there were 291 licensed day care providers in the county. As of last week, that number had dropped to 218.
“It was gradual until 2014. Then all the new laws that were passed in 2013 went into effect July 1, and we really saw a drop-off of applicants because the requirements are much higher than they used to be to get licensed,” she says. “We saw more people closing than usual.”
Training for licensure has doubled from eight hours to 16 hours, including some types of required training sessions that have to be done every year. Some trainings, like sudden unexpected infant death syndrome (SIDS) and abusive head trauma (formerly known as shaken baby syndrome) were required every five years. Now they’re required every year.
Infant Care
“They’ve clamped down on infant sleep space to make sure there weren’t as many sudden infant deaths,” says Knutsen. “That’s important, but it’s gotten to the point where providers can’t even hold a sleeping baby, and that bothers quite a few people.”
Some providers also care for their own children in their day care.
“But now they can’t even hold their own sleeping infant because they’re considered a daycare child during daycare hours,” says Knutsen.
Those new infant standards have some providers reconsidering their decision to operate a day care.
“A lot of people don’t want to take infants because there’s so many regulations,” says Emmy Howard, a licensed provider in Becker since 2005. “You can’t hold them while they’re sleeping. It kind of takes away the one-on-one bonding.”
New regulations require infants to be placed in a crib once they fall asleep. And they must remain in sight of the provider while asleep. That can cause issues if the provider has their group of children playing outdoors. And outdoor time is one of the state’s day care requirements.
“If an infant falls asleep in a swing or during a walk, we have to bring them to a bed instantly and everyone has to come inside,” says Howard.
The new regulations prohibit the provider from placing a blanket on the sleeping infant, and that can also be a problem if parents use blankets at home.
“I just have to be more strict with parents and let them know infants aren’t allowed to use blankets,” she says.
Knutsen says there are a number of reasons day cares close. Some providers retire. Others move out of the county. A few close when their own children reach school age. And others just want to get back in the working world with other adults. Some don’t give any reason.
“But I don’t think people are finding that they can’t make it financially, because the rates are going up with supply and demand,” she says. “They’re not quitting for that reason in Sherburne County.”
Rates
A number of providers offer hourly and daily rates for parents who don’t work all week.
Weekly rates, on average in Sherburne County are $141.05 for infants, $132.32 for toddlers, $123.85 for pre-school and $112.60 for school age.
That’s lower than providers charge in the Metro Area. But it is competitive in Sherburne County.
“You can’t charge $10 an hour like in the Cities in this area because people can’t afford it,” says Michelle Carlin, an in-home child care provider in Big Lake for the past 27 years. “If you did that you’d never have anyone in your daycare.”
Rating System
Carlin says although money isn’t the main reason daycares are closing, it’s an issue. A new program called Parent Aware is forcing many providers to do more without any additional compensation.
“It’s a rating system where you go through schooling and training to get star ratings,” she says. “You have to have a certain number of toys per age bracket and teach certain curriculum. It’s like they want the in-home daycare providers to have as much training as they would if they worked in an actual pre-school.”
That star rating is used by parents searching for a day care as a way to decide where to take their children. Supposedly, the higher the rating, the better the daycare. But Carlin says that’s not necessarily the case. In fact, she has worked as a pre-school teacher and has been teaching kids long before the Parent Aware program started.
“I think it’s scaring a lot of people because they don’t want to go through all of the schooling. They have to have parent conferences just like a school would,” she says. “They want all this education and they want you to teach preschool to get a higher star rating, but you’re not getting paid any more per hour.”
Knutsen says 26 providers in the county decided to close this year. But that doesn’t mean people aren’t willing to go through the process of starting their own day care. She has licensed 10 new providers in 2015.
But the county, and the entire area, needs more, especially since most day cares are only licensed for one or two infants.
In a young community like Sherburne County, there are lots of two-parent working households with very young children. The county’s website lists all the licensed daycares and what age children they accept.
“Infant care is very hard to find,” says Knutsen. “We’re getting calls all the time.”
She says anyone interested in opening a day care can attend a free three-hour orientation meeting offered every other month at the Government Center.
“We tell them how to apply, how to prepare their home, get it inspected and how to get training,” says Knutsen. “Meanwhile, we’re running a background study and getting reference letters. Once all that is done I can go out to the home and license it. It takes two to three months.”
The next orientation meeting is Thursday, Oct. 15 from 9 a.m. until noon at the Government Center.
