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| Donna Archer |
Clients call her Grandma.
For more than 20 years, Donna Archer has watched children inside her Bristol Township ranch home. She has watched children so long, she now cares for children whose parents she once watched. One parent she had as a child wanted to make sure she’d have an opening before his youngest child was conceived.
Archer has a state license to watch up to six children at one time who are not related to her. But no parent has ever asked to see it, she said.
Her experience isn’t unusual.
Jean Garnett has cared for children in her Bristol Township home for more than 30 years. No one has ever asked if she has a state license, which subjects her to unannounced state inspections to ensure she is meeting minimum safety, health and quality standards.
Child care experts said they are troubled, but not surprised, that parents don’t ask, or more likely don’t know to ask, about state licensing.
“I’ve got someone down the street who says, ‘I’m watching my kids, and two other kids, if you want to drop off kids,’ and a mile down the road there is a high quality program, most parents will go the path of least resistance,” said Richard Fiene, a retired Penn State University behavioral science professor who studied unlicensed child care in Pennsylvania.
Price and proximity are typically the first things parents look for in prospective child care, according to Fiene and other child care experts.
“If a place looks good and the person seems nice, that is a gauge,” said Carol Austin, executive director of the Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children. “Parents don’t understand what a high quality child care program is.”
Holly Rhoades put her 2-year-old daughter, Gemma, with a woman who watched kids in her home. A friend who recommended the woman told Rhoades she knew first aid and had a state license. The woman showed Rhoades a notebook where she tracked when children were fed and diapers changes. Her rates were affordable, Rhoades added.
Yet Gemma would come home with more diapers than Rhoades thought she should have leftover and had more frequent diaper rashes. The last straw was a text message telling Rhoades another child scratched her daughter’s face, she said.
She switched Gemma to Archer’s child care. The difference is eye-opening, she said.
Archer follows a curriculum including colors, letters and numbers. She sends Rhoades photos throughout the day showing what Gemma is doing. She gives Rhoades frequent updates. She keeps detailed records on each child, which the state requires.
One day Gemma fell and bumped her head. Archer immediately called Rhoades and sent photos of the injury.
“I’m a first-time mom, so I’m super protective of her. I definitely want someone who is licensed with my daughter,” said Rhoades, a Bristol Township resident. “I feel it should be required. It’s an innocent life. They can’t take care of themselves.”
Parents too often don’t know what questions they should be asking child care providers because no one tells them, Garnett said.
“When I have parents who are leaving me, I give them a list of questions to ask,” she added.
Garnett operates the only family home-based child care in Bucks County with three out of four Keystone Stars, a widely recognized indicator of quality early childhood education. But quality doesn’t come cheap.
The cost of mandatory training, certifications on topics like recognizing child abuse, safe water play and safe sleeping environments, and related expenses comes out of her pocket, she said. The same for any home upgrades required to meet standards.
“But it’s not something you wouldn’t want for your children,” she said. “Especially home providers, it being your home, you live here day to day. There are things you can easily overlook.”
The average Pennsylvania home child care provider watching six children brings in less than $950 a week before taxes, based on estimates from the nonprofit Child Care Aware of America. Garnett and Archer declined to provide their weekly rates.
But illegal child cares often charge less than licensed family home child cares, which typically operate on razor-thin profit margins. Losing one or two families can result in financial instability and potential closure, according to Tom Copeland, a Minnesota attorney and national expert in home child care businesses.
“I can’t think of another industry that allows illegal competition to flourish without negative consequences to the violators,” Copeland added.
Taxpayers also get hurt. Potentially billions in uncollected local, state and federal tax revenues is lost to illegal child cares, which typically operate under the table, experts estimated.
More than 235,000 Pennsylvanians sought $129 million in tax credits for child and dependent care in 2015, IRS records show. The figure included an estimated $13.4 million in tax credits for Montgomery County taxpayers and $8.9 million in write-offs for qualifying parents and guardians in Bucks.
Every year, the IRS allows parents to seek millions of dollars in tax write-offs for child care. To qualify for those tax credits, families must provide the names, addresses, Social Security numbers or employee identification numbers of child care providers, who are required to be state licensed if they are watching six or more children.
But the IRS form that families fill out does not ask families if their provider is properly state licensed.
Licensing is the first thing Archer tells prospective parents looking for child care. She credits its required continuing education and training with preparing her for any emergency and keeping her updated on regulation changes.
“It’s a lot of work. There are many times I say, ‘Why do I do this? Why am I jumping through hoops?’” she said, before pausing to look at four infants and toddlers gathered at her dining room table one May morning.
“This is why. This is why,” she said, gesturing toward the children, tears rimming her eyes. “I wanted to make sure I did everything right. God forbid something happens here, I can say I did everything right.”
Staff writer James McGinnis contributed to this story
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