OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — State officials are reversing course on a plan to rate child care centers differently.
“I know that DHS is going to have to make some changes,” said Gabrielle Moon, the Executive Director of St. Luke’s Children’s Center. “We are very grateful to them for putting a pause on it.”
In the plan—prior to its withdrawal—if a child care center were to receive a violation, two-star programs would be reduced to one star, and three, four, and five star programs would drop to two stars.
If a high-rated child care center were dropped to a two-star rating, there would be a decrease in funding from DHS by almost half.
Childcare center owners tell News 4 it would take approximately two-and-a-half years to get back to a five-star rating.
We spoke with a childcare center owner who asked to remain anonymous. Her program is also rated five stars.
“It terrifies me to think that my life mission of child care, I’ve been in this a very long time, is being threatened. The state needs to get behind child care 100% because we are the bedrock and the foundation of our entire state,” she says. “Those rules state that if you have one serious non-compliance, you’re referred immediately down to two. And if you go to a two, you lose your DHS contract. If I make one mistake, who can work under that kind of stress?”