Parents of kids under 3 need more access to good daycare. Here’s a way for them to get it.

Parents are urgently in need of child care for children too young to go to preschool. A DC Council bill scheduled for a vote tomorrow morning would help them by increasing the number of “infants” allowed in home-based daycare.

Current DC law allows a total of 6 children to be cared for in a home-based environment, but only two can be under age two. Bill 20-607 would permit any of the 6 children to be under age two, while requiring a provider-to-student ratio of one-to-two or more.

Councilmember Jim Graham sponsored the bill “to address a great need for child care for children under two years old while ensuring the highest quality of care.”

The greatest need for daycare is for children ages zero to two. This bill would immediately end extra restrictions on 500 daycare slots and might induce the creation of more home-based daycare centers in the future.

Sixteen witnesses testified at a March 20 hearing on the bill. Fifteen parents and child care providers, including myself, spoke unanimously in favor of the bill in its current form. The State Superintendent of Education for DC, Jesus Aguirre, recommended several changes.

One key change relates to the Child Development Associate (CDA) license, which child care providers must currently obtain. Mr. Aguirre recommended increasing the licensing requirements so that “both providers and their assistants obtain this credential.” But Aguirre ultimately supported the bill.

“This expansion is important,” he said, “because this is the age range where there is the most unmet need in DC.”

Cory Mengual of Mary’s Center, who supports home-based daycare providers in the licensing process, explained that the bill would correct an anomaly created by the recent expansion of public preschool in DC to children as young as 3.

Daycare centers that previously served children through age 5 now primarily serve them only until approximately age 3. But the law allows them to accept only two kids younger than age two.

“A lot of the providers we work with are unable to fill to capacity and are contemplating closing their businesses or returning to unregulated nanny-share arrangements to be able to support their livelihoods,” Mengual said. “This would represent a huge blow to licensed capacity and would restrict access to safe, healthy environments for young children.”

“Finding affordable quality childcare in DC is extremely difficult,” said local parent Isabel Friedenzohn. She said the proposed changes “would allow more employment opportunities” and “allow more children to be served by daycares in total.”

A common theme among daycare providers at the hearing: parents are begging them to care for their kids who are two or under, but they can’t under current law. Providers, some with up to 20 years of experience, also emphasized the critical developmental period from age zero to 3 and lamented being able to provide care for so few children in that age group.

The bill was the brainchild of local parent Charles Koppelman-Milstein, who was personally affected by the law. “After moving our son through several care situations,” he said, “and never getting off any of the waitlists we’d been on for months, we had finally found a person we could entrust with our son whom we could afford.

“Three adults took good care of 4 toddlers in a home much like our own—taking them outside daily, teaching them, and talking with them nonstop,” Koppelman-Milstein said. “Unfortunately, it is illegal for a home daycare to care for more than two children under two, regardless of staff, so my son and one of his classmates were kicked out, leaving us to continue our search.”

The bill is currently being introduced as emergency and temporary legislation, which would allow it to take effect quickly. A permanent bill would come up for a vote later.

With support for the bill strong among those who are currently aware of it, the main threat is inertia. If you have an opinion on the bill, you can contact your representatives on the Council, including at-large Councilmembers. At-large Councilmember David Catania, as chair of the Committee on Education, is expected to be a particularly critical voice.