Senate to weigh in on bill aiming to address child care shortage in Idaho

COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho — A bill to deregulate child care facilities in Idaho has daycares taking sides.

The new bill was proposed to make it easier for child care facilities to open, potentially helping the child care shortage in Idaho.

“This will help tremendously,” said Jaclyn Monton, the owner of North Idaho Kids Academy. “We have to move kids around in order to stay within ratio and it can get difficult at times.”

Right now, Idaho regulations state that for every six kids between the ages of 0 and 2 years old, there has to be one staff member watching them. Some facilities say because of the ratio regulations, they have had to turn kids away or send kids home early.

“There’s been times where we’ve had to call families and have them freak out because we were short staffed,” said Monton. “I think the ratio for the infants is good because they need more one-on-one, but as far as the older kids go, when we’re outside or we’re doing group activities or art activities, I feel like we could have more than 12 points on that for sure.”

Those opposed to the bill, however, say it allows there to be child care facilities where children significantly outnumber the staff.

“My concern is that some people would just put 20 kids with a teacher and that’s not safe,” said Cassie Carlson, the owner of Coeur d’Alene Learning Center. “If someone had eight infants in a room by themselves and there’s a fire, how is that provider going to get those kiddos out of the building in a safe manner?”

Carlson says the child care shortage is an issue but loosening regulations is not the answer.

“There becomes a lot of safety concerns for the kids in the facility,” she said. “The staff in general think reducing supervision requirements is very concerning.”

The bill has passed in the House and is waiting to be voted on in the Senate before heading to Governor Little’s desk to be signed.