New Regulation - 8VAC20-781-420 B 2. Toys and equipment with cords and strings shall only be accessible to children two and older.

Is there any reason to justify this new regulation? Is there any data that toys with cords or strings are being offered to young children in a way that is unsafe. There are many common children toys that are suitable for toddlers and infants. Pull toys with strings offer cause and effect opportunities. Crafts with small pieces of yarn are common. Stringing beads offer a great fine motor task. What about the little cords on those infant toys you pull and they vibrate or sing a song? Dancing ribbons? There is no evidence that indicates that these items are unsafe for children under two. Long cords and strings could be a safety concern but there are already regulations that require age appropriate materials and this new regulation seems unnecessary.

8VAC20-781-420 F. If combs, toothbrushes, or other personal articles are used, they shall be individually assigned.

While this seems simple enough and certainly no one wants children sharing toothbrushes this is extremely broad. What is considered a personal item? We for example share hair clips from time to time. I can unfortunately see licensing agents now checking every drawer for an unlabeled comb or verifying each toothbrush label even if the teaching team knows which item is whose and so they are individually assigned but not labelled. Regulations like this leave agents preoccupied with things that don’t really create high quality or even safe care. They are looking at expiration dates of sunscreen in February with their backs to the children (true story). I am not aware of any evidence that there are health or safety concerns about sharing of personal items in child care programs, this seems unnecessary.

8VAC20-781-480 D. The licensee shall ensure that staff wash their hands with soap and running water: 1. Before and after: b, A diaper change;

No one washes their hands before a diaper change. Rules like this become a ‘gotcha’ randomly or simply exist in the books and are never actually followed. A teacher caring for 4-5 children for an 8 hour day changing diapers every two hours will change 12-25 diapers each day. A diaper change can be shifted to 8VAC20-781-480 D 2 and we could have accurate regulations.

8VAC20-781-580 First aid and emergency supplies C 11. A first aid instructional manual.

There's not a lot of harm in having a first aid manual in the first aid kit and there is no utility in a first aid manual, it takes up unnecessary space for teachers and will never be used. There’s no uniformity in these manuals making them even more useless when we all have a super computer in our pockets are you a first aid trained teacher going to be flipping through an unfamiliar manual to maybe find a description of how to handle some injury that would require a manual. This is a waste of inspectors and providers time.

8VAC20-781-50 B. 8. Previous child day care and schools attended by the child, as well as any child day care or school concurrently attended by the child;

There is no meaningful reason this data would be required for children’s health and safety. Programs are free to ask if that’s desirable to them but this is not something that the state has any need to require because it’s simply unrelated to health or safety.
New Regulation 8VAC20-781-70 B. The licensee shall ensure that staff in each group of children maintains a list of children that accurately reflects the children in their care.
While this seems simple and straightforward to a layperson, tracking children’s attendance is burdensome for low tech providers and even often for those of us comfortable with common technology. This regulation is simply an opportunity for the regulators to write up and police teachers for inaccurate attendance sheets. Parents forget to log their child in or move their child’s photo all the time but the list not being up to date is not a big deal if teachers know which children they have in their care. Do we want educators focused on caring for, loving, supervising, and teaching their children or checking the accuracy of their attendance sheet constantly? I am not aware of how tracking at a group level on a list of this nature increases anyone’s safety. Programs have many means for maintaining safety in their groups. If something unsafe is happening that is covered by the other standards if the list is not up to date that is just policing and wasting teachers time.

8VAC20-781-720 C. Group size requirements in 8VAC20-781-270 A do not apply to therapeutic child day programs and special needs child day programs.

I’m not sure why this would be the case but it seems unsafe for our children with disabilities. We would like to see this exemption removed.

8VAC20-781-10 Definitions “Experience in a supervisory capacity” means experience in an administrative position that includes supervising, orienting, training, and scheduling.

We would like to see the “and” in the definition of experience in a supervisory capacity changed to “or”. There are lots of ways to get supervisory experience and it seems like sometimes one of these parts wouldn't be included in a position and that would be ok to still qualify as supervisory experience.

8VAC20-781-10 Definitions "Protective surfacing" means impact absorbing materials for indoor and outdoor use, under and around playground equipment.

This definition of protective surfacing is useless and should be updated to name the specific ASTM standard(s) the surfacing should meet.

8VAC20-781-250 J. Sandboxes shall be covered when not in use.

This proposed sandbox language change is problematic for large sand areas, which are really great for children. Our school has a two-level sandbox that is nearly 200 square feet and would be impractical to cover. It was built to allow drainage for safety and cleanliness. The new language of 8VAC20-781-250 J requires all sand to be covered when not in use. We advocate you keep the old language: “Sandboxes with bottoms which prevent drainage shall be covered when not in use.”