Study says Idaho ranks last in childcare

Idaho is worst in the nation when it comes to having someone take care of our kids, according to a study released last week by The National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies.
The study faults Idaho's child care regulations and ranked the state last, after Louisiana.
The national standard for toddler childcare is one staff person to every six children. In Idaho, there are three variations; one staff to six children for children under 18 months, one staff to 12 children for ages 18 months to five years and one staff to 18 children for ages five years and older.
Criteria for the rankings included caseloads for center inspectors, frequency of inspections, health and safety requirements, background checks, staff qualifications and activities offered to children.

Daycare Closing

Kate Henley says she was upset when she learned the daycare would be closing. "That's my job for one and it's where my kids have gone to daycare for a little over a year.
Kayla Groseclose shares Henley's frustrations. "The teachers are great and he has learned a lot since he's been in there and I don't know that I can find another daycare that will give him what he got there."
Jeff and Terry Stump own the daycare. They say they've been losing money for the last year and that expenses exceed income.
Some people are upset about the short notice, but the owners say it's enough time for parents to find another daycare and for employees to find another job. They say it's better than closing the daycare without any notice at all.
They say in order to stay open, they would have to increase the daycare fees, which would be too much for parents.

Daycare with a vision

Dozens of children dashed around the New England Sports Academy yesterday morning, climbing over obstacle courses, swinging on trapezes and tossing baseballs, and if owner Henry Shterenberg has his way, the facility will soon add a daycare contingent to its offerings.
Shterenberg envisions the program, called Super Kid Academy Childcare, as balancing fitness with academics at the 345 University Ave. site. If approved by the town and state, the daycare would complement the New England Sports Academy’s existing multitude of activities for children and adults, which includes baseball, basketball, boxing, martial arts and weights.
"We want to put athletics education on the same level as academic education," Shterenberg said.
The fitness education component has the objective of combatting childhood obesity.

Public Health tardy in paying daycare providers

The Government of Guam's bleak financial condition continues on its downward spiral, now affecting the island's children enrolled in daycare. Funding problems surrounding the Department of Public Health's Childcare Block Grant Program date back to October 2006 for some providers. Public Health openly admits to the fact they are late on their payments for their providers under the program. Chief human services administrator Diana Calvo stated as a result of concerns raised at last months meeting, a work group was established between Public Health and the Childcare Association Group to assist the agency get payments out to providers, saying, "It basically is a manual process and we only have a number of staff dedicated to preparing it on a monthly basis." She also confirmed, "As far as the calls that have come in today, we're really not sure what prompted the calls to be made, because one of the things that we had pledged to the providers was to really focus on getting the payments out as fast as we can."Agency director Art San Agustin in the meantime says Department of Administration deputy director Joey Manibusan informed him that payments for the childcare providers would be released.

City Kids Daycare Discriminates Against Breastfeeding Mothers

Robin Neorr enrolled her daughter in one of the City Kids Daycare available in downtown Columbus Ohio, and was charged an additional $50 per week to care for her three month old daughter because she was breastfed. While Neorr's infant daughter was still receiving care from the City Kids Daycare she felt uneasy drawing negative attention to the discrimination. However now that she no longer depends on them to watch her child Neorr is fighting back. Neorr was told by the City Kids Daycare that her milk was a hazardous body fluid that had to be kept separate from all other food. The bottles of pumped milk were kept in a separate refrigerator in the director's office and labeled as a biohazard. The daycare also claimed that they would have to purchase a separate warming pot for heating up the breast milk.