Today, I’m going to be talking to all the daycare and childcare licensed facility owners out there in this great state of North Carolina. So this is going to be part three in a three-part series. I’m going to do it a little differently this time. Go 3, 2, 1. And the reason being is these are the three most likely childcare violations that can lead to a Notice of Administrative Action revocation. So we’re talking about revocations here.
The third most likely one to end up with revocation is the staff-to-child ratio. And I’m not talking about a single allegation of staff-to-child ratio triggering an automatic notice of administrative action for revocation. That’s not likely to happen, although if you’ve got a very strict consultant and a very strict supervisor for that consultant in your region, you never know. So none of those things are really guaranteed, per se.
But in our experience dealing with representing childcare facility owners and childcare homeowners, typically a one-step-to-child ratio, as long as it’s corrected and the capstone and all that stuff, you’re not likely to have a revocation. Now, having said that, if this is a repeated problem where you’ve been warned, you do a CAP (Corrective Action Plan), everything’s kosher, they come back, they do a plethora of repeated follow-ups and things of that nature, and this is an ongoing issue, then they’re going to get sick and tired of it and eventually do a revocation, especially if this is coupled with other violations.
Now, not to give away too much in our next blog, but the second most likely violation that ends up in a revocation is a lack of supervision. The staff-to-child ratio is put in place so there are proper eyes and ears on and around the children to ensure that nothing is happening that shouldn’t be around them. This can lead to a supervision violation. Many times, when you get a staff-to-child ratio violation, you may also get a supervision violation. If somebody sees that there aren’t enough people around and you’re not able to see and hear all the children at the same time.
So, it’s very important with the staff-to-child ratio. This is where a lot of this stuff really starts, having adequate staffing. You have to maintain the staff-to-child ratio because it can lead to much bigger issues that will result in revocation. And as we said before, if the state consistently has to tell you, “Hey, you’re out of compliance. Your staff-shot ratio is messed up. You got it correct last time, but now you’re out of compliance. This is the third, fourth, fifth time that we had to do it.” Then that’s going to pile up, and it’s likely to end up with a revocation at that point.
Now, when we’re talking about staff-child ratios, what that is, say, we’ll take a child’s age from zero to 12 months, for example, assuming that you’re not in the highest enhanced voluntary license, which will be like your five-star, for instance. Assuming you’re not a facility like that, you have zero to 12-month-old children. That’s going to be a one-to-five staff-to-child ratio, meaning one staff to five children. The maximum is going to be a group of 10, zero to 12-month children. That would require two staff members for the 10 children. Now, if you are in the highest voluntary enhanced category, which, for example, is your five-star facility, then you’re going to have a one-to-four ratio. So, you have to pay particular attention to that: one staff member to four children, with a maximum group size of eight if you are in the highest enhanced category.
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