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GUEST COLUMN
(2/13/2007)
Is there a child care crisis in South Dakota? It depends upon whom you ask?
BY CINDY FLAKOLL CONCERNED WOMEN FOR AMERICA *This is the fifth of a series preschool and early child development. Part 1 , Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. Low-income parents have very little choice in child care, if they wish to receive federal assistance. The South Dakota Department of Social Services (DSS), which distributes these funds, has seen to that with stifling rules that limit who a parent may hire to care for their children. If a low-income family has no relatives or friends to handle the care-giving, then the parents are required to place their children in a registered or licensed center or give up their assistance funds. Rural areas oftentimes do not have registered or licensed daycares. One wonders just how many miles some low-income parents must commute, with children in their vehicles, in order to obtain Social Services-approved care. Another unspoken concern is what happens, especially in single-parent homes, where the parent must work variable shifts and/or weekends. According to DSS’ rules, the parent must obtain ONLY registered/licensed and/or relative/single-family provider care for ALL shifts worked, or the parent again loses federal assistance. For example, the single-parent would lose her/his assistance if she/he utilized care from a registered provider during the week, but switched on weekends to an unregistered provider who also cared for a second family’s child. The single-parent also could not utilize a relative as a provider on the weekends if this provider also cared for just one more child from a second family. Confusing? Read this for yourself here. Currently there is a movement afoot to over-regulate both registered and unregistered family-home daycare by requiring licensing by the DSS. In fact, a task force commissioned by the South Dakota legislature in 2004 recommended that anyone caring for 1-6 children needs to have the “oversight” of DSS. Anyone hear the thunder of bloated bureaucratic fancy footwork here? If unregistered family daycares are tromped on by more regulations, and closures result, then there will be no choices – even for middle-to-higher income families – in many rural areas. Perhaps this is the reason an over-regulatory law that had been unenforceable in the 1970s was removed from the books in the 1980s and replaced with the more lenient law now in place to accommodate rural areas. What would result if our state suddenly had a drastic cut in childcare options? It would mean children would be riding in vehicles longer periods to receive care. It would mean longer waiting lists at registered/licensed centers. It would mean overburdening of the child care “industry,” as the task force calls it. Would more parents stay home with infants and pre-schoolers, or would facilities begin bussing these children, as we already see Headstart and some pre-schools are doing? Now it is 4-year olds, next it would be 3-year olds and so on. In St. Paul, MN, I am told by a special education teacher, infants are actually bussed to preschool---or whatever the care is called there. So what is the answer to all of this? One suggestion would be that the federal assistance becomes something like a voucher given to the parent to utilize wherever he/she wishes. Certainly there would need to be some type of certification that the parent is actually working. But one would think most employers would be happy to provide this information, and to do so again when the parent terminates the employment. This would be true “choice in child care.” This would ease the stress on low-income families, whether they are single or dual-earner households. To do anything less for families living near the poverty level is not doing enough. How is it we have traveled this road as a state for such a long period of time, doing so little to lift the burden from these families? Therein lies the childcare crisis.
Cindy Flakoll is a farm/ranch wife in McPherson County.
She is also Legislative Liaison for Concerned Women for America
of South Dakota. Concerned Women for America, a women'
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