(WMAL) — Arlington County is working with daycare and preschool providers to update regulations for their childcare centers. Many say the first draft is spattered with government overreach, including a county official.

“This current draft – I think we can safely say it overreached in a few areas,” says Kurt Larrick, spokesman for Arlington’s Dept. of Human Services. “This draft of the code tried to strike a balance between basic standards and best practices. Overreach came where some of the best practices were trying to be codified.”

For example, the draft includes the following provisions:

• “The licensee will ensure that mothers are encouraged to breast feed their infants.”
• “The interior of the building must be finished in light or bright colors…”
• “Celebrations (birthdays, special occasions) should include mostly healthy foods or non-food treats.”
• “Children two years of age and older will be served only skim or 1% pasteurized milk.”
• “Staff will promote dental hygiene among children at mealtimes.”
• “Only full-strength (100%) pasteurized fruit juice or full-strength juice diluted with water from a cup will be served to children twelve months of age or older.”
• “… All cribs, cots and mats must be spaced a minimum of 3 feet (36 inches) apart.”
• “[Providers must have a plan for] acquiring, stockpiling, storing and cycling to keep updated emergency food/water and supplies needed to care for children and staff for up to 3 days if shelter-in-place is required…”
• “The licensee will ensure that a trained staff member shall conduct and document a health check of each child every morning upon arrival.”
• “In addition to the application document, the [child care center] must submit… a business plan.”
• “A licensee will have specific arrangements with a health care provider who will provide consultation on both routine and emergency health care issues for children.”

Larrick told WMAL the county is hearing from parents, daycare providers and the community as part of the process to eventually make revisions and come to a final regulation that suits everybody’s needs, but there has been some backlash.

“I am sure these regulations are well-intentioned and meant to foster excellent Arlington preschools,” reads one comment. “But we already have excellent Arlington preschools. The effect of some of these costly new requirements will be to drastically increase costs, making these excellent schools inaccessible financially for some area families.”

The backlash from providers is kind of ironic, says Paige Neal, director of Funshine Preschool, since the draft was director-driven.

“The county gave us the opportunity, and when I say us I mean preschool teachers, daycare providers and directors and owners, a chance to change Chapter 52 [of County Code], because we saw some things in the old one that we didn’t like. So, they gave us the opportunity to change it and we broke into groups and we did this over the past three years. And now that it’s up, these providers don’t like it.”

But this is just part of the process, Larrick said.

“At this point it’s going to get messy before it gets clean, and that’s the way the process goes when you do it this [collaborative] way,” he said.

Child care provider Sandra Redmore says sure the details need to be worked out, but it’s important to keep focused on the end goal.

“I don’t want the argument to become about the color of paint.” Redmore told WMAL. “The discussion needs to be about working together to make the revisions so these really important things, big things, about children’s health and safety are met.”

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