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|  | News Items Posted On: March 24, 2006
Showing stories 1 - 4 of 4.
NC - County to create child care task force
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Friday, March 24 @ 13:10:48 EST by emohan
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A new task force will examine county residents' child care needs, including how the business community can become more involved in the issue.
Orange County Commissioners Tuesday night unanimously approved a motion to create the Orange County Child Care Task Force.
Valerie Foushee, a commissioner who has been interested in child care issues, said when the task force is complete, she hopes there will be more information and "we will have strategies to meet our child care needs in this county. I think all of us know the benefits of early childhood education."
Employees who are not worried about their children and child care are more productive, she said.
In 2005 the county's Department of Social Services wrote a report and made recommendations on subsidizing child care in the county. The report quoted a Child Care Services Association figure that families can spend more than $1,000 per month, per child on full-time day care.
"Our charge would be particularly to get the business community involved," Nancy Coston, director of the county's Social Services, told the commissioners.
The commissioners also want the community to be aware of how early childhood education can help children, as well as have workplaces supporting families and children more, according to the task force's charge.
The task force charge includes updating information on: employers who provide subsidies or help their workers in other ways with child care; how many people the county's subsidies help; and how many people are on waiting lists for those subsidies.
Full text available at the Herald Sun
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MI - Council kills ban on home child care
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Friday, March 24 @ 13:03:41 EST by emohan
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Group day care homes will be allowed to continue in residential areas of the city, but will be restricted to minimize their impact on their neighborhoods.
The Troy City Council on Monday voted 6-1 to reject a proposed ban on home-based day cares serving seven to 12 children. The council will meet next week to discuss what kinds of restrictions to place on the homes, such as operating hours, safety inspections and fencing requirements.
The decision ends two years of legal limbo for day care providers, who have been licensed by the state to operate since 1973 but forbidden by local zoning laws that prohibit hired help in home businesses.
"I feel a sense of relief, but still feel cautious," said Sharon Schafer, who has operated a group day care since 1990. "I think we're going down the right road."
Supporters of the city's 19 group day care homes worry that the city will pass restrictions recommended by the Planning Commission which include minimum lot sizes of a half acre and 6-foot-tall privacy fences. Four or fewer of the group day care homes would meet those requirements, city officials said.
Full text available at The Detroit News
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AR - Study Focuses On Pre-Kindergarten Programs
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Friday, March 24 @ 12:49:58 EST by emohan
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In a celebration and pep rally, state education leaders met at Fair Park Early Childhood Education Center in Little Rock Thursday morning to discuss Arkansas' progress in reaching out to some of its youngest. Experts say investing in three and four year olds creates the best return on your money.
Lynn Huntley with the Southern Education Foundation introduced a new study. "I am proud to be here today to release Miles To Go Arkansas," said Huntley.
The report shows how Arkansas is doing in reaching out to little ones. Fourteen thousand, three hundred kids are in pre-kindergarten in the state. That's 30 percent of the kids eligible by law to attend state funded programs.
To be eligible a family must be 200 percent below the poverty level or have an annual income of $37,000 for a family of four.
The study shows that one of the biggest problems is that the pattern of pre-k development across the state is uneven.
In eight Arkansas counties 50 percent or more of the kids attend pre-k. In 30 counties it's less than 20 percent, and in seven counties no kids attend pre-k.
"Simply put by serving less than one of every 3 children in the eligible population the state has not positioned itself to reap the full benefits of an investment statewide in early childhood education," said Huntley.
Huntley says obvious things can be done to close that gap, like more funding. The group is asking the state to pump $20 million more into pre-k programs. Some actually think that's possible.
Full text available at todaysthv.com
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Some states rate child care centers to boost quality
Submitted by emohan. Posted on Friday, March 24 @ 12:05:54 EST by emohan
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For decades, five-star hotels and restaurants have had consumers lining up to get in. Now comes a new consumer rating: five-star child care.
North Carolina is among a fast-growing group of states offering a kind of Zagat guide to child care. Just as if they were restaurants or hotels, child-care concerns are being assigned star ratings by state regulators. Both child-care centers and family child-care homes, where a sitter takes several children into her home, post the ratings on front doors or walls and sometimes in advertising. The ratings are fast becoming the linchpin for states' drive to raise child-care quality.
"It's the most significant step in improving quality that we've seen in years, and it has absolutely caught fire across the country," says Steffanie Clothier, child-care program director for the National Conference of State Legislatures, Denver. "Over the last several years, it has gone from a few states designing new systems, to half the country looking at" doing so.
States implementing the plans have increased from a handful in 2001 to 14 currently. New Hampshire and Iowa are rolling out child-care quality-rating systems this month. On Tuesday, Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal signed a measure into law that established a rating system. In the Albany, N.Y., area, a four-county pilot program was successfully completed recently and a statewide child-care task force is exploring next steps. The state of Washington is also developing a rating plan. In all, about two dozen states are exploring or designing ratings systems, says Anne Mitchell, a Climax, N.Y., consultant and author of a 2005 United Way study on the topic.
The ratings systems evaluate facilities on such criteria as low child-adult ratios, teacher credentials, curriculum, group size, and the safety and richness of the environment. Some of the criteria have been linked in research with better outcomes in children. Most states rate both child-care centers and preschools.
The ratings "give parents tools they have lacked in the past," says Linda Smith of the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies in Arlington, Va., a nonprofit group of 800 child-care agencies that have put the rating systems to work. These agencies, findable at www.ChildCareAware.org, make the ratings available by phone or on the Web.
Full text available at the Post-Gazette
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