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SUMMER FUN!
Summer is here and you want to continue to offer year 'round learning and a quality program, but your staff and your shorter customers (the kiddos) are ready for a change of pace.What to do?
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Ice Cream Olympics - Banana Split Tag (play tag while balancing a banana on head), Ice Cream Races (plastic cones and wiffle balls make the pretend ice cream cones for relay races), and Sundae Buddies (children sit across from each other in pairs with each one's wrist tied to his adjacent partner with 16" of yarn. Players must remain on their bottoms and work together to make and then eat their own sundaes!) Hey wait, is this for the kids or for the employees at the next staff meeting? You decide!
- Make Summer Time Staff Meetings and Training Sessions more fun by putting them in game format. Visit http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/ppt-games/ or Google "PowerPoint Games"
- Surprise your teachers periodically by delivering bottles of cold sweet tea to them on the playground - along with a thank you for exhibiting super supervision! They aren't sitting down out there, are they?
THE SCIENCE OF "BRIGHTSPOTS"
We recently attended a Leadercast Seminar where the science of brightspots was briefly discussed.
Here is the story in a nutshell:
Someone went to a third world country and was asked to help solve the problem of childhood malnutrition. The only food crop and source of income for these families was rice. It was also just about their only source of food. The person conducting the study was originally told that he would have five years to help solve this problem so he had thoughts of different food crops to raise and sell for more money and improved roads to get them to market and perhaps to even purchase better food. But when his plane landed he found out there had been a major shift in government and he was faced with a very different scenario. He had only 6 months to solve the problem with little resources or help. Did he turn around and give up? No. He enlisted the mothers as he went from village to village and held meetings asking them to weigh and measure and record the names and ages of every child in every village. Equipped with tape measures and scales they soon reported their findings back to him. As he reviewed the data, he noticed that in every village he could circle the names of a handful of children who were thriving instead of starving. He visited each of these "brightspot" families to find out what they were doing that differed from what their friends and neighbors were doing. The result was that in every village he was able to recommend simple changes that anyone could adopt into their lifestyle in order to eradicate malnutrition. The changes were simple: four smaller meals throughout the day rather than just two large meals each day, and add the tiny crabs and shrimp that naturally inhabited the rice patties to their rice meals every day, and also add simple sweet potato greens.Study the "brighsppots" in your child care center. Who is doing something right? What is going well? How can you and your staff replicate those ideas in less successful programs and classrooms? Simple ideas are genius!
TOP 10 MINIMUM STANDARD DEFICIENCIES
Below is a list of the top ten reasons centers are cited for deficiencies in their programs. What changes can you make to eradicate these deficiencies in your program?
1. 746.3701 - All areas accessible to a child must be free from hazards. Supervision alone cannot prevent all accidents and injuries. Buildings, grounds and/or equipment in a state of disrepair threaten the health and safety of children. Consider bartering child care for handy-man services.
2. 746.1203(4) - Supervise children at all times, adjusting appropriately for different ages and abilities of children. Simply put, teachrs should never leave their children for any reason even if a co-teacher is in the room with them, not even to step into a hallway, run to get needed supplies or take a quick bathroom break. If you allow teachers to leave their classrooms for SOME reasons, they will s-t-r-e-t-c-h those reasons to include other scenarios - it's human nature! Also, there are differences in the way a group of 2 year olds are properly supervised and the way a group of 5 year olds are properly supervised. Does your staff know the difference? Climbing abilities and upper body strength are perfect examples. Two year olds and five year olds are all great climbers, but the five year olds are better at getting down safely rather than jumping into space like a hamster or losing their grip and falling.
3. 746.1201(1) - Demonstrate competency, good judgment and self-control in the presence of children and when performing assigned responsibilities. Allowing children to play a running game inside an area not large enough to safely accommodate the activity, allowing children to view the pictures on the teacher's cell phone, or positioning a stretchy headband to hold a pacifier more securely in a baby's mouth are common examples of poor judgment.
4. 746.1601 - Classroom ratio. If you operate your center in a way that makes it difficult for you to comply with this standard, you must re-think your situation. The potential risks far outweigh the benefits. If this issue only comes up occasionally, for example when too many teachers call in sick on the same day, most children love to visit another age-appropriate classroom from time to time. If the issue is an everyday thing, you may need to hire more caregivers. But first look closely at the routes of your bus/van drivers, are they leaving way too early to go on bus runs? Do you revamp your bus runs at least quarterly as children drop from your before & after school program? Are you sending out three buses every morning when in fact you now only need two? Is the cook taking too much time to clean the kitchen when she could be helping out in a nap room thus allowing a teacher to take a longer lunch break and then work 30 minutes later each evening without incurring overtime? Do you perform hourly attendance counts? Perhaps the teacher who comes on duty early and leaves early is not actually needed until a little later in the morning thus allowing her to stay later in the evening, too.
5. 745.625 - Submitting requests for background checks. You are so busy running your school that it is easy to place this in an in-box or To-Do list and the next thing you know too much time has gone by and you are out of compliance. We suggest using this chore as a time to bond with your new employee! While the new staff member is sitting in your office, go online and complete the request for background check. As you ask her for the required info, small exchanges of conversation will take place, too. "Hey, my son's birthday is the same day as yours!" "Oh, you live nearby (or really far away!)" "So you lived in Arizona three years ago? What did you like best about that?" And most people enjoy talking about their middle names! Now you've taken seven minutes to get this task done, it was done on time AND you've had some meaningful "face" time with a new employee.
6. 746.1315(a) - One caregiver per group of children must have current training in first aid with rescue breathing and choking. The easiest way to prevent overlooking this is to color code the names of new employees on your daily staffing schedules until they have received all the training required for their position. Creating a phone list spreadsheet that includes each employee's name, birth date, hire date, and CPR& First Aid expiration date provides you with a valuable "at-a-glance" monthly reference tool to stay on top of employment anniversary celebrations (and annual training requirements), birthdays and CPR & First Aid certificates that are about to expire. Simply check the spreadsheet toward the end of each month for the upcoming month and update it as you hire new staff. It is also a good idea to schedule the required training as soon as possible and document the date you scheduled the class and on what date it will occur and file the info in the employees' staff files.
7. 746.3407 - You must clean, repair, and maintain the building, grounds, and equipment to protect the health of the children. Broken toilets, failing to wash toys before different children place them in their mouths, sharing of cribs or nap blankets and sheets, storing cleaning supplies on the same shelves as food and juice concentrate; allowing children to place their food (especially snacks) directly on the table rather than on a napkin or plate; allowing children to wash hands while serving bowls of food or prepared plates of food are sitting on the sink countertop are recurring examples of deficiencies regarding this standard.
8. 746.603(a)(3) - Statement of the child's health from a health-care professional. Make a rule regarding new enrollees' paperwork and enforce it. If your policies state that ALL paperwork must be complete before the child' first day of attendance or within three days - enforce it! If you make an exception, document it in the child's file and write a reminder to yourself on your calendar so that you follow up and ensure compliance. It's silly to undergo an investigation because a child sustained a boo-boo at your facility, be cleared of any wrongdoing, but be cited because his file was incomplete!
9. 746.3401(a) - Your child-care center must have a sanitation inspection at least once every 12 months. Make a copy of the form or checklist used during a previous health inspection and perform your own monthly quick inspections to ensure year-round compliance. You can file a reminder to yourself 30 days prior to the next expected inspection in order to perform a thorough pre-inspection self-check. Make sure that your cook, housekeeping/janitorial staff and classroom teachers are aware of what is expected in order to stay in compliance, too. If the annual inspection falls off the health department's radar, don't breathe a sigh of relief because it will only come back to bite you later. Do the right thing and call them to remind them that your center is overdue and document on what date you called, the number you called, who you spoke with and what was said. File this documentation in the file with previous health inspections so that when licensing comes looking for the report, they easily find that you are on top of things.
10. 746.5101(a) - Your child-care center must have a fire inspection at least once every 12 months. Exactly the same information holds true for fire inspections as health inspections (see above.) And if you are fudging the info on the required record for monthly fire drills, shame on you. Do the monthly drills and use the real alarm when you do so that children and staff are less likely to panic in the event of a real emergency. Create a "cheat sheet" as to what number to call in order to put your alarm system on test, what number to call to let the local fire department dispatcher know that you are having a drill, how to reset your system, etc. and post it right on your alarm box. Actually performing these drills is the only way the teachers and staff will learn what to do in the event of an actual emergency, and muscle memory can be a life saver during a genuine emergency!
Successful people actively create their lives, while everyone else is created by their lives, passively waiting to see where life takes them next.
Michael Gerber, paraphrased
Last month we shared with you the proposed changes to the Minimum Standards for Child Care. The proposed new rules can be downloaded at: click here to download
The change most strongly opposed is the standard regarding ratios and group sizes. We must overwhelm the Child Care Licensing public comment site with our comments if we hope to get them to retain the current ratios/group sizes rather than decreasing them. The address to email comments on the proposed new standards is:
746.1011 (a) ...your director must be present a minimum of 75% of the center's operating hours each week or a minimum of 30 hours per week, whichever is less...(b) A director must not be designated to direct more than one child-care center.
Questions: What costs will you incur in order to comply with these changes? How will this change apply if you are on vacation or off-site at a training seminar? What if you own more than one school and must occasionally list yourself as the director while searching for a qualified director and while training the new hire? In what ways could these changes positively impact your center?
746.1203 (Caregiver responsibilities)...caregivers counted in child/caregiver ratio must:6. Be free from activities not directly involving the teaching, care, and supervision of children, such as: d. Personal use of electronic devices, such as cell phones, MP3 players, and video games;
Questions: Are cell phones part of your operation? How did your center operate before cell phones? How did staff contact the front office from the playground? ...from portable buildings not connected to the main structure? Will bus drivers be able to use cell phones if necessary such as when a child does not get on the bus after school? Can you provide licensing with examples where cell phones either caused or alleviated incidents in your program?
Let's be active participants in our own futures.
THURSDAY "Summer" Management Sessions/Director's Boot Camp #13
8:30am-1:30pm (7 clock hrs.-each attendee will receive a 2hr. take-away training module) /$99.00
"The Secrets To Employee Recognition That Works"
"Ten Low-to-No Cost Ways To Motivate Your Staff"
"Ten Secrets of Getting Great Employees To Stay"
Thursday, July 1 Holiday Inn Midtown 6000 Middle Fiskville Rd. AUSTIN, TX 78752
Thursday, July 8 Southfork Hotel 1600 N. Central Expressway PLANO, TX 75074
Thursday, July 15 Crowne Plaza 2712 Southwest Freeway HOUSTON, TX 77098
Thursday, July 22 Hotel Trinity 2000 Beach Street FORT WORTH, TX 76103
Thursday, July 29 Holiday Inn 318 W Durango SAN ANTONIO, TX 78204
Visit www.thechildcareconsultinggroup.com to download
the registration form under the CONFERENCE tab,
or call 972-979-0282 for more information
on these exciting training sessions.
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