New duties for day cares: Rules may put private providers at disadvantage

New changes in early childhood education present challenges for local private day care centers, which will be required to meet the same standards as programs fully funded by the state.

Curriculum changes and providing staff members with substantial pay are some of the problems child care providers are striving to overcome, at least those receiving some financial assistance from the state.

The Louisiana Department of Education Early Childhood Office will begin its formal evaluation of programs across the state this fall. Programs scoring below 3 on a scale of seven may face sanctions.

Sites will have two years to improve unsatisfactory scores before losing public funding and academic approval. No loss of funding will take effect before July 1, 2019.

This has the potential to hurt private day care centers more than Head Start and pre-K public school programs.

“It’s a twofold situation,” said Michael Ford, co-owner of Barney and Baby Bop Day Care center in Patterson.

“We, as child care providers, have always had a curriculum. … But our curriculum changed because of what the state is requiring us to do. Therefore, some curriculum was totally scrapped and we went with their curriculum.”

State-funded Head Start and pre-K public school programs are used to accountability standards requiring evaluations. In addition, financial resources are readily available for those programs. It’s not the same case for day care centers.

“We’re actually having problems financially because those two agencies already have their money financially,” Ford said. “They have money already set aside and allocated. And because we’re privately owned, we have to generate that money.”

Compensation for early child care teachers is another concern for private owners.

“The second part, I think our child care teachers have done a fantastic job adjusting to what we’re asking them to do,” Ford said.

“But if you look at the pay scale, where they’re making $8 or $9 an hour in child care, in the school system they’re making $30,000 to $40,000 (per year). So there is a varied range of financial payment.

“We want to try to accommodate our teachers in child care to try to get them to a higher level that’s not to the school system pay, but something a little higher, because we feel they are required to … do more things, which they have adjusted and not complained.”

The state-provided day care centers get curriculum assistance from the Volunteers of America organization. The organization helps teachers coordinate curriculum with lesson planning.

“They’re working with the teachers as far as getting us on the same page curriculum-wise and helping us with lesson plans for the school year, which is great,” Ford said.

“It has accelerated us to the point where we’re not as far behind. But you must understand, this is our first year. School systems have been doing this 100 years. Head Start has been doing it quite a few years.

“Basically, this is our first full year doing it. And we’re not that far behind because as a rule, most of the day cares have some type of curriculum. We just have to change them a little bit based on what the state is requiring us to do.”

The St. Mary Community Action Agency is the lead agency for Cohort 3, which includes St. Mary Parish. There are 65 early childhood education classrooms across the parish. It includes six day care centers and nine Head Start programs. The rest are pre-K programs in school districts.

“We have found that we’re going to have to bring in some consultants or specialists for instructional support to help not only Head Start, but pre-K and child care centers, to try to make sure our scores are where they need to be,” said Almetra Franklin, CEO of St. Mary Community Action Agency.

“I think at the end of the day that most people in the child care system love children from the start,” Ford said. “They’re doing whatever it takes to make the adjustment so they can help support the kids’ growth and their well-being.”