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Bipartisan measure gives parents tools to make child-care decisions

Choosing to place a child in daycare is one of the toughest decisions parents will ever make, and it is a decision a majority of working families in California will face at some point in their child’s life. Some 1.2 million of our children are served by 58,000 facilities in the state, with the Community Care Licensing Division of the Department of Social Services overseeing licensing.

Parents who work and leave their children in daycare have a right to know everything there is to know about a facility.

Is it licensed and in good standing? Have there been any personnel or safety-compliance issues?

Today, this information is difficult to access.

To find reports on a center’s violations, a parent has to inquire with the licensing office–one facility at a time. This is a cumbersome process and, as child-care consumers, parents deserve better.

That’s why I am delighted that Assembly Bill 313–a bill I am jointly authoring with my colleagues, Assembly members Kevin Jeffries, R-Lake Elsinore, Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, and Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa–passed the Assembly Human Resources Committee in recent weeks.

This legislation would require the Licensing Division to grade each facility and make the results readily available to the public.

Here’s how the grading system would work:

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