From: nyschildcareowners@gmail.com<nyschildcareowners@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2023 11:14 AM
To: Suzanne.miles@ocfs.ny.gov; nina.aledort@ocfs.ny.gov; thomas.brooks@ocfs.ny.gov; governor.hochul@exec.ny.gov
Cc: info@ocfs.ny.gov
Subject: Formal Request to Reform the NYS Childcare Regulatory and Enforcement Regulations and Policies
Hello and Happy Holidays!
The purpose of this email is to expose the true, root cause of the New York Childcare Crisis, revisit years of conversations with OCFS representatives regarding NYS childcare providers’ concerns with the regulatory and enforcement system, and formally request clear, specific, reasonable, and actionable change.
The industry is suffering with existing providers exiting in droves, creating growing childcare deserts across the state. Naive media analysts correlate the childcare crisis to economic and fundamental business model issues under the guise that low wages, low margins, few benefits, and unaffordable tuition rates are the sole driving factors. Contrarily, providers in the industry, specifically in New York, would attribute the primary reasons for growing childcare deserts, burnout, decreasing number of available slots, and increasing disinterest in the field to the oppressive regulatory enforcement system, increasing barriers to entry with lack of support, criminalization of compliance reporting, and vilifying providers by the governing state agencies. This has generated an increasingly tense, accusatory environment of distrust, entitlement, and disrespect amongst the families and children we serve, and unfortunate extinguishing of the passion providers once possessed.
Conversations echoing these concerns have occurred in pockets throughout the state between OCFS officials, NYS providers of all modalities, and CSEA union representatives for years including, but not limited to:
-April 14th, 2022 meeting in Lake Katrine with regional directors and providers from Mid Hudson Region NY. The communication breakdowns, lost files, and lack of responsiveness and support during the COVID-19 epidemic from licensing to providers were discussed.
-June 2022 to May 2023 series of Zoom meetings and emails facilitated through Michele Hinchey’s office between with OCFS representatives and providers from the Hudson Valley region regarding the increasing struggles to operate childcare businesses with the oppressive fear-based relationship with OCFS/licensing. Stories of unethical and unfair treatment of providers by licensors during inspections were shared and the need for a significant cultural shift was discussed. The need for a provider's bill of rights was discussed and the following concerns were raised:
Lack of and need for a clear due process system including the ability to file a complaint when providers are harassed or disrespected by licensors
Need to change one-sided compliance reports by providing systematic response/review after each licensing visit/inspection where providers can disagree, give feedback, provide context publicly or ask for clarity
Civil communication must allow providers the right to respectfully advocate, question, and respond to licensors without fear of retribution
Lack of transparency about licensor training and the need to add professional development in ethical communication and abuse of power dynamics
Practice of listing violations on the OCFS website for 4 years after inspections (often long after the children, families, and staff involved in the occurrences depart the program) which is misleading, confusing, damaging, and needing reform. (Especially with the new Clean Slate Act allowing criminals with convicted misdemeanors to have sealed records after 3 years, but NYS childcare providers have all “violations,” including both founded and unfounded complaint investigations AND self-reports, posted publicly on our business profiles and in our businesses for 4 years)
-Multiple CSEA attempts to set up a meeting with OCFS to discuss the possibility of allowing non health & safety related regulation infractions to be coaching opportunities or technical assistance support by licensing officials instead of a formal violation
-October 28th, 2023 mini-conference with the WNY Child Care Action Team, OCFS representatives, and NYS Childcare Professionals to discuss the misinterpretation and miscommunication of regulations by licensors
-November 7th, 2023 meeting with NYS licensed providers and WNY Child Care Action Team to discuss the subjectivity and various interpretations of the regulations, punitive and oppressive inspection experiences, the vague, one-sided compliance report format, and lack of due process in the existing hearing and enforcement procedures
Immediate corrective action and reform is necessary. We are formally requesting the following regulatory changes:
1. A written, public, formal investigation process including how licensing decides whether to issue a citation, the inspection authority and rights of licensors and providers. Please see the attached, tangible example of California’s investigation process. Please note the separation of public visibility between substantiated and unfounded investigations, 3 levels of violations categorized by risk, provider ability to respond publicly to any findings related to licensing visits visible on the compliance report, and citation appeal rights; these are all elements we are requesting to adopt. (Considering document 96-08 Responding to Public Inquiries (attached) located on the OCFS website under Child Care Policies specifically states on both pages 2 and 3 that only substantiated allegations will be reflected on provider profile pages, we don’t understand why unsubstantiated claims are publicly visible anyway)
2. A public, standardized licensor manual and reference materials. Please see this example from the California Department of Social Services Evaluator Manual – Reference Material (ca.gov) as well as the attached evaluator manual. The Evaluator Manual serves as a step-by-step instructional guide for Licensing Program Analysts used in licensing and evaluating facilities.
3. Public transparency and accessibility to stakeholder meeting information on the OCFS website with upcoming meetings, dates, times, agendas, and participation links so we can be aware of and involved in the discussions and decisions regarding the childcare industry. Please see this example from the California Department of Social Services Stakeholder Resources (ca.gov)
4. A transmittal sheet to be used when changes and updates are made to the regulations to easily visualize what content was removed or inserted. Similar to page 1 of the attached Evaluator Manual.
5. Clarify and reword subjective terminology in the regulation for less opportunity for varying interpretation between licensors. Please see attached current regulations for Child Day Care Center with highlights and comments showing the regulations with subjective wording, ambiguities, and contradictions.
In our industry, aspiring teachers are taught that quality education involves patience, repetition, kindness, respect, coaching the differences between favorable and unfavorable behaviors utilizing redirection and positive reinforcement techniques, and fostering a trusting relationship between students and educators. We are formally requesting that New York childcare regulatory agencies require regulators to consistently model the relationships and standards for which they preach.
Here is a link to our active petition https://www.change.org/NYSChildcarePolicyReform to emphasize the support and publicity of these issues. The campaign is gaining political and media interest as well. A group of childcare owners have a meeting on December 14th with Elizabeth Brinkworth, Chief of Staff of NYS Assembly member Monica Wallace, and Legislative Director, Lila Balali, to discuss our issues and requests as well. An acknowledgement response with a plan of action prior to our December 14th meeting is desired please.
Your urgent consideration and action on this matter is requested as a systemic reform is long overdue and there are elements of the current regulatory/enforcement process that infringe on our constitutional protections. To ensure this matter remains a priority, we have gathered real-life experiences from providers of every modality across the entire state demonstrating the oppression and injustices of the current regulatory and enforcement process and intend to share them with you daily until our requests are satisfied.
We eagerly await your response.
NYS Childcare Providers