A regular Source feature, Undercurrents explores issues, ideas and events as they develop beneath the surface in the Virgin Islands community.
Kids Wait for “Smarter” Care
Government efforts to ensure better education for toddlers and preschoolers have hit a snag.
As part of the revision of the comprehensive rules and regulations governing day care centers and preschools in the territory, staff at such facilities will be required to hold a Child Development Associate Credential or to have an Early Childhood Learning degree.
The education requirement is the centerpiece of the new regulations, which also include such things as tighter child-to-adult ratios and increased physical space per child.
The revision was years in the formulating and was finally approved in April 2011. Day care operators and any employees counted as part of the child-to-staff ratio, must, at a minimum, have acquired a CDA by June of 2014.
When the new rules took effect, the credential required 120 classroom hours of education. Translated into practical terms that’s about a year of training and means people would have to begin the course work in the first half of this year in order to complete it by the deadline.
Working with the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands, the Department of Human Services has contracted with a private agency to develop a local CDA training program and provide it at a reduced cost to existing and potential day care operators and personnel.
The hitch is that now the CDA rules are changing too.
The national organization that oversees the CDA, the Council for Professional Recognition, announced recently that it will soon unveil a new version of the credential, one which “will strengthen and streamline the child development associate (CDA) National Credentialing Program” according to its website. People won’t be allowed to apply for the certificate under the old rules after May of this year.
“It kind of put a monkey wrench in our plans,” said DHS spokeswoman Monife Stout. “We have to wait for national to complete whatever changes they’re in the process of making” before starting the local training program.
Stout said V.I. officials are hopeful that the local training can begin “by fall of this year.”
See also https://stthomassource.com/content/news/local-news/2012/09/03/undercurrents-changing-rules-child-care
Hope for Prisoners Seeking Parole
“The governor is in the process of finalizing nominations to the (Parole) board in both districts,” Government House spokesman Jean Greaux said last week in response to an email query. Names and information about the candidates will be available once the nominations are sent to the Legislature for confirmation.
The Parole Board has not had a full complement of members for more than a year. With only three voting members on what is supposed to be a seven-member board, it has been able to act only on cases in which it can make a unanimous decision since the law allows for action on a vote of three members. It has not been able to take action on “extraordinary” cases, that is, requests for early parole, because those require a quorum.
Already problematic, the situation has now become critical because one of the three voting members is ill.
By statute, the board meets at least twice a year, in June and December. But there was no December 2012 meeting. Darien Wheatley, who oversees Parole Board operations for the Attorney General’s Office, said last week it may be one or two months before the ailing member can meet again.
By that time, if the confirmation process goes smoothly, there may be more members on the board.
For more see: https://stthomassource.com/content/news/local-news/2013/01/14/undercurrents-parole-board-faces-tough-decisions