Iowa lawmakers should keep child care safe

COVID-19 has hit Iowa’s child care industry very hard. Centers have closed. Infected providers stopped working. Workforce shortages and increase safety precautions have made child care a difficult, sometimes impossible, job. That leaves working parents stranded without the essential support child care provides. How is the 2022 Iowa Legislature addressing the problem? House Study Bill 511 calls for making child care less safe by increasing the child-to-adult ratio far higher than national experts recommend. This reckless approach won’t fix the problem. Instead, it will increase group size and the spread of infection (not a good idea during a pandemic), increase the chance a child could be in danger and provides less one-on-one time for nurturing and stimulation at a time when a child’s brain is at peak development.

Last week the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine published an exhaustive set of recommendations to address center closing, assist the workforce, modify subsidy and reimbursement, improve system coordination. Iowa DHS is even doing some of these things. But nowhere do they recommend changing health and safety standards. Please urge your state representative to oppose this ill-advised legislation. Instead, encourage increased financial and technical support for child care.

Thomas Rendon

Des Moines