City refuses to move into the 21st Century when it comes to daycare regulation

While I am on the fence about how much we should regulate private daycares in the city (because I think parents should do their research, it’s part of being a good parent) I also think the city should be providing as much information as possible, especially if it is available and the health department is charging a fee to regulate the industry. It amazes me that restaurants go thru more regulations then people who care for children. I suppose I could go into a diatribe about about the latest incident, but I will let the professional investigators figure that one out.

I do however would like to comment on the hogwash coming from the city;

City Council member Michelle Erpenbach said. “That being said … I don’t know that we can point to this particular incident and say if we could have, would have, should have, that this would have turned out any different.”

NRRRRRR! Wrong answer. If we are regulating a business and they are not complying with those regulations (they were fined twice) they needed to either A) come into compliance or B) be shut down. It was preventable.

And now for the washing of the hogs;

Though a link on the site will show viewers a list of citations issued, the inspection reports can be accessed only by typing in the name or registration number of a provider and seeing whether an inspection report exists.

“It would be awesome if everything could be everywhere on the site to make it easier for people to get the information,” Health Department director Jill Franken said. “Unfortunately, the technology doesn’t allow us to do that yet.”

As I pointed out last week to the city council, information should be easily accessible and not misleading on the city website. Sorry Jill, the technology is readily available. And while grandma green apples may believe your excuse, those of us who are living in the real world know better. City government’s resistance to modern software is not only troublesome, but is having some grave results. Time to upgrade. NOW!

As of now, the city’s website allows the listing of only one citation per day care. Edwards’ day care has had two citations, but only one is listed. The system removes listed citations after one year.

I’m not even a programmer and know for a fact that this is a simple programming edit. As for listing citations, it only takes minutes to scan a handwritten document and post it on the internets.

The next important step is to make substantiated complaints and citations more easily accessible, Randall (executive director of South Dakota Voices for Children) said.

“They shouldn’t be buried under a bushel basket,” she said. “The linkage to get those online quickly and easily needs to be put out there.”

Thank You Susan! At least someone is paying attention.

City Councilor Vernon Brown said most parents probably choose day cares based on advice from friends, family members of co-workers.

“We need to do more to help people,” Brown said. “But there is no fail-safe method for any government to truly regulate what happens hour by hour, minute by minute, at a day care. The best eyes and ears when it comes to this is the parents.”

While I agree 100% with Vern’s statement, he fails to mention that this is no ordinary case. They had been asked TWICE to come into compliance, and nothing was done. No follow up inspections. No license termination. Like I said in the opening, parents are ultimately responsible, BUT if government is getting paid to regulate such businesses, they need to follow thru!