In summary

California wants to resume in-person daycare inspections. Vendors fear that the inspectors, who may not be vaccinated, could put the health of their prosecution and business at risk.

Childcare workers are pushing against a government plan to resume in-person inspections after a year of disinfection, social distancing and restricting parents and other outsiders from entering their locations in an attempt to keep COVID-19 at bay.

The state recently told vendors that inspections will start again in the spring. Around 2,200 childcare workers across California have signed a petition asking the Department of Social Services to pause and virtually continue in-person inspections. So far, however, the plan remains unchanged.

Vendors are concerned that allowing inspectors – who do not need to be vaccinated – into their facilities could expose vendors and children to the coronavirus, potentially leading to closings and business failure.

“Government agencies need to think and rethink ways to slow the spread of COVID. It hasn’t gone from our homes or our lives, ”said Shruti Agarwal, who heads Shruti Family Day Care in Livermore, Alameda County and is president of the Valley Family Child Care Association. “The numbers may have gone down, but it’s still there and taking life.”

Agarwal launched the petition asking the state to wait until the end of the year to resume regular regular compliance inspections. Last year these inspections were carried out virtually. Other types of complaints-related inspections continued in person throughout the pandemic.

The Department of Social Services, which oversees the Community Care Licensing Division, said inspections will begin soon and guidelines for the process will be developed.

“The department anticipates more face-to-face visits will be made in the coming months. More details will be available shortly as guidelines are issued,” spokesman Scott Murry wrote in an email. He wrote that the inspections would initially focus primarily on infection control.

Murray also wrote that the agency “did not receive such a petition,” despite a Bay Area license manager giving Agarwal and other vendors a virtual phone call to assure the agency that the petition had been forwarded to senior officials at Social Services.

The agency declined a request for an interview with an officer overseeing licensing, but Murray answered some questions via email.

The providers, who were promised a scholarship to care for subsidized children almost two months ago, are still waiting for the money to arrive.

This is the most recent volley of childcare workers who have declared that they feel disrespected and are excluded from many benefits for key workers, despite staying open throughout the pandemic.

Thousands of locations were closed last year after children were kept at home and operating costs skyrocketed. Others are hardly attached to it. Providers promised a scholarship to care for subsidized children nearly two months ago are still waiting for the money to arrive, and the newly formed Child Care Providers United union is currently negotiating with the state over higher wages and benefits for providers.

During a March question-and-answer session with the Valley Family Child Care Association, Anika Evan, the Southeastern Childcare Bureau’s regional manager for Community Care Licensing, told a Zoom audience of childcare facilities that inspections would begin sometime in April.

“We share your concerns and we raise them,” she told the group. “However, the rules and regulations, and the things that are prescribed, are national and come from our governor’s office.”

Evan said the analysts would be tested for coronavirus once a week and could attend at least three daycare for at least three days a week. During the unannounced visits, analysts conducting the inspections enter facilities to look around, but can then sit outside if the vendor prefers to speak to them there.

In an email, Murray confirmed that all employees are tested every week but do not need to be vaccinated.

And while child carers were eligible for vaccination weeks ago, the children they are caring for are not, so providers worry about being the source of an infection or an outbreak.

“I don’t know where analysts are going. I don’t know where they were, ”said Agarwal. “You could have been to 10 different places.”

The day care worker Karamajit Kaur (left) and Shruti Agarwal will feed the children’s breakfast on April 13, 2021 in the day care center of the Shruti family in Livermore. Agarwal fears that inspectors, potentially visiting multiple locations per day, could unwittingly bring COVID into their daycare, which is acceptable to children from infancy to school age. Photo by Anne Wernikoff, CalMatters

In Compton, the 30-year-old childcare worker Renaldo Sanders is stressed by the new development. She is entitled to look after up to 14 children in her home care.

“We had to stick to all the new rules – disinfecting, disinfecting, buying new equipment like computers, juggling a normal schedule with distance learning,” she said. “We try to keep the children happy and follow the guidelines and rules.”

She measures temperatures throughout the day, disinfects toys and tabletops between uses, and shows kids how to keep their distance by smiling with their eyes or holding their own arms to indicate a hug.

To date, Sanders has not had any cases of COVID-19 related to her childcare.

“I understand we need a check-and-balance system,” she said. “But it will expose a person to our facility that we are unsure of about safety.”

These compliance inspections require an analyst to walk through the facility, for example, to check smoke detectors and fire extinguishers, test cabinet locks, and ensure cleaning supplies are available, vendors say. They also count the children for compliance and review the paper records.

Visits last year were carried out virtually.

According to Agarwal, if the state implements the plan, vendors will require notification of upcoming visits so they can plan and let parents know that an outsider will enter the facility. For security reasons, many providers have not approved parents for almost a year.

“Nobody is going to say that cases are due to licenses. It becomes the childcare’s fault. Then people have to close, lose money, lose customers, and people start taking children off the program. “

Shruti Agarwal, child carer in Livermore

If vendors need to be out with an analyst during an inspection, they may also need to ask someone to help them that day – which would cost them money – to maintain the required adult-to-child ratio in their childcare.

Over the past year, many have seen their numbers decline as parents lost their jobs or kept children at home, and costs rose due to increased hygiene, virtual learning, and new safety guidelines. Agarwal started with 12 children last year and has now dropped to six, but said she was determined to stay open to her families.

“We haven’t fully recovered,” she said. “It will be difficult if it is common.”

Most providers are concerned about their low cost that can sustain COVID-19 and even when they may not have severe symptoms. To date, there have been more than 12,000 childcare-related cases of COVID in California.

Agarwal is no stranger to fear that COVID-19 will enter their childcare. Although she did not have a positive case related to her childcare, she recently had to close for two days because some of her children had runny noses.

She said the Department of Social Services told her there could be potential COVID-19 exposure and requested that all children be tested and that she should report the potential exposure to the county. The county’s health department ordered her to close until all children have been tested or quarantined, she said. Nobody tested positive for COVID, but one family moved their child to a different childcare facility because they couldn’t afford to take time off while it was closed.

“That is exactly why we are concerned about the inspections,” she said. “Nobody is going to say that cases are due to licenses. It becomes the childcare’s fault. Then people have to close, lose money, lose customers, and people start taking children off the program. “

CalMatters’ coverage of early childhood issues is supported by grants from First 5 Los Angeles and the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation.