Detroit

This article slays me. The world is coming to an end because day care providers are expected to do their job. "My TV is on all day." Ouch. I got an idea of what that would be like. Once a month Edith and my husband and I give platelets for cancer victims. Yesterday, the TV was on during the day - for me - to make me more comfortable, but I couldn't ask them to turn it off to actually make me more comfortable, because they were watching it. Can't imagine having a TV on all day.

The Detroit news TV
Sunday, October 2, 2005
Stricter Day Care Rules Sought

Child-care operators in Michigan face limits on TV time, ban on trampolines under state proposals.
By Brad Heath / The Detroit News

Hearing scheduled The Department of Human Services will hear comments on the proposed changes for larger day care operators at a hearing from 3-7:30 p.m. Oct. 12 at the Macomb Intermediate School District, 4401 Garfield, Clinton Township. Hearings on changes for smaller facilities have concluded.

Television and trampolines may become less popular at Michigan day care centers.

State day care regulators are considering new rules that would bar most of Michigan's child care centers from planting kids in front of the television for more than two hours a day and would ban trampolines altogether.

The rules would also require extra training for employees, part of a series of steps officials said are needed to improve quality and safety at day care centers.

"Children are our most valuable resource, and the proposed changes to child care regulations help to ensure that children are receiving high-quality care that improves their early development and gives them a great start in life," said Maureen Sorbet, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Human Services, which oversees approximately 20,000 day care centers.
Still, not all of them like the idea.

"My TV is on all day," said Mary Garrett, who has run a small day care center for children younger than 5 years old out of her Detroit home for the past 22 years. "I don't think the state limiting that is a good idea. You can monitor what the kids watch and you can still help them learn. They don't watch anything and everything. I try to get them to watch something that's going to help them when they get to school."

She's all for shooing the kids outside to play, she said, "but on a rainy, cold day, you know you're not going to be able to let them out."

The changes are part of two sets of day care rules proposed by state regulators. Neither has been finalized.

One would apply to the state's roughly 15,000 family and group day care centers, which can take no more than 12 children. In addition to barring trampolines and too much TV, the proposed rules would require center owners to get 10 hours of training every year; and would force the facilities to get radon tests and have windows that allow easy escape in an emergency.

The other is aimed at bigger facilities, the day care centers, preschools and Montessori schools that serve more than 250,000 kids. They would require employees to get at least 12 hours of training every year, increase training requirements for people who operate the facilities, force playground equipment to meet higher safety standards and make fire inspections more frequent.

Regulators said they don't yet know how many changes the centers will have to make to live up to the new rules if they're approved.