Two years ago the Kansas Legislature passed Lexie’s Law, which requires small child care operations to be licensed and their employees trained. It is called Lexie’s Law, named after a 13-month-old girl who died from injuries she suffered in a day care center in Johnson County in 2004.
The new regulations and inspections have had dramatic success. Five years ago Kansas ranked 46th in the country for policies governing day care centers. This year, the Associated Press reports, Kansas was ranked third by a national rating organization.
Rachel Berroth, director of child care licensing for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, praised the law. “Everyone knew we needed more training to better prepare our providers to protect and care for our children,” Berroth said.
State officials reported that some providers got out of the business when the new law took effect, but others expanded their operations. The net effect has been to increase the number of available care slots — and to reduce the number of children injured in the centers.
Workers in the centers are now required to have training in basic child development, first aid, CPR and recognizing signs of abuse, among other areas, such as nutrition and child behavior.
New child care operators are required to have their workers trained within 30 days of going into business; existing businesses have until February 2013 to complete the training.
THE SUCCESS of Lexie’s law has an important lesson to teach: government regulations can make life better. Part of the purpose of government is to identify problems and devise solutions. In this instance, the problem was that untrained child care workers were allowing children to hurt themselves or unintentionally causing injuries through ignorance. Lexie’s Law was the solution.
The solution isn’t cost-free. It costs money to inspect day care centers to make certain the law is being followed and to offer further state assistance in making the centers safer and better places to care for children. Most would agree that value is received for the money spent.
Not everyone, however, seems to understand that our state government cannot continue to identify problems and provide solutions to them if choking off the source of money that government must have to function remains the primary goal of the governor and far too many of our lawmakers.
We learned the sad consequences of unregulated child care and took action. With a little imagination, we can conjure up a Kansas with failing public schools, highways gone to potholes, unkept public parks, part-time judges, second rate universities, legions of uncared for poor and elderly Kansans and let those nightmares jolt us into action.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
