Day-care safety bill introduced
BOISE – Idaho would require basic safety standards for all day-care centers, under legislation introduced Friday by Coeur d’Alene Rep. George Sayler.
That means criminal history checks for the people who take care of the kids, basic fire safety standards like providing smoke alarms, and some limits on how many children one adult can oversee at once.
“This bill is really just minimal – it’s going to provide safety, that’s the goal,” said Sayler, a Democrat. “It’s tough for parents. There are so many that work. They need to be able to be assured that their children are being well taken care of in a good environment, a safe environment.”
Idaho’s current day-care regulations apply only to centers with 13 children or more. Sayler’s legislation, developed by a North Idaho group that’s been working on the issue for a year and a half, would apply them to all centers caring for two or more children unrelated to the caregivers.
Cathy Kowalski, owner of Loving Care Children’s Center in Coeur d’Alene and a member of the Child Care Summit group, said, “It took a year to put together a piece of legislation that we think will improve the health and safety of child care statewide.”
She added, “The current statute is so old. Our socioeconomic situation has changed in our communities. It’s time to update those.”
Sayler told the House Education Committee that the North Idaho effort was prompted after a police officer who was looking for a place to take his own children walked into a local center in 2003 and smelled marijuana.
He estimated that there are 65,000 children in day care in Idaho, being cared for on a daily basis by someone other than their parents.
Lawmakers have been resistant in past years to stiffening regulation of child care in Idaho. But Sayler and others said the time may have come.
“I thought it was worth the effort,” he said. “This might be one way that some of those children could get a little better start in life.”
Sayler noted that existing law provides exemptions from regulation for occasional care of a relative’s, friend’s or neighbor’s child by someone not ordinarily in the child-care business; private or religious preschools for children age 4 and older; and day camps, programs or religious schools that operate for just a few weeks of the year or once a week. Those exemptions would continue under his bill.
The House Education Committee agreed unanimously to introduce the bill, but members noted that when it comes up for a hearing, it will be in a different panel, the House Health and Welfare Committee.
Rep. Ann Rydalch, R-Idaho Falls, made the motion to introduce the measure, though she noted that Sayler would “probably have to come to me on bended knees to get me to support this.”
Sayler said he’s working with several other legislators on the bill, including Republicans.
Said Kowalski, “This really is not a partisan issue. It’s an excellent opportunity for legislators to recognize – children don’t care what their political affiliation is.”