Re: Fire at Mexican day care/other comments for discussion
Posted by: montmo on 6/08/09
On 6/08/09, Jan wrote:
> Churches are required to have adequate exits, in order to
> meet as a church. To my knowledge, church daycares follow
> the same rules.... but if they do not have to, the ones I
> know, actually have lower number of children per adult than
> public daycares. I have worked in church daycares in other
> states (I live in Ohio now)... And I have worked in public
> daycares. The situtations in the church daycares were MUCH
> better than in public. I can only share my experiences, but
> we had less children per adult, we had better qualified
> workers over all, and we were paid better. I just have not
> seen this as an issue.
It must just be our state then. Child care ministries do not
even have to licensed if is is being operated as an extension of
a church or not for profit religious organization. They can be
licensed if they can meet the requirements for a licensed center.
For an unlicensed child care ministry there is no staff/child
ratio,, no square footage requirements and the annual inspection
for fire is the same as the primary use of the building. Assuming
that the fire exits are sufficient, with no ratios, I can see
where here there might be a problem. Granted there are many,many
church ministries that are extremely careful and can and probably
do pass the licensing requirements for centers, I can see a
loophole here for a problem. The administrator has no educational
requirements and I would assume that goes for staff, too. I
just think of my inlaw's old church building that passes for fire
exits. There are so many steps, different levels, hallways
galore, etc. There is no daycare in there, but there could be if
anyone would ever want to and any parent would sent their child
there. Thanks for sharing.
