(No need to donate money to this petition- thanks!)

Child care regulations exist to keep kids safe and make it clear what is expected of a licensed or registered provider. 

Over time, changes to regulations are made, often based on changes in national health and safety standards, and on feedback from people impacted by the rules. In fact, the Early Childhood and Family Support Division spent several years in a deep and thorough rule-making process (including stakeholder input) to clean up, clarify, and improve our child care regulations. Those regulations are set to go into effect at the end of the legislative session.

But now, two proposed bills would make huge changes to our child care regulations and processes, and providers and parents alike have a lot of concerns. 

SB269 would impact Family and Group providers, and makes the rules so vague that it would be hard to know if a program is in compliance, and hard to have consistent standards across the state. (read the bill here)

SB285 would impact Centers, and some of the changes are raising eyebrows with how they seem to loosen important safety standards. (Like, school age kids can be outdoors without any direct supervision... as just one example.) (read the bill here) 

These bills were not developed through the rule-making process which is  described already in Montana law, and if they pass, they would make it harder for programs to receive waivers of specific rules on a case-by-case basis (which many programs have found helpful to staying in compliance and assuring safety.)

Sign on and say NO, child care regulations should not be written without a clear public process, and definitely should not weaken standards that keep our kids safe.