How A Building Code Update Disrupted Child Care Centers In California

Here are the morning’s top stories on Friday, December 20, 2024…

• California is contending with a child care shortage, and the state has made efforts to increase options for families. But conflicting regulations from two state agencies are causing child care centers to turn away thousands of infants and toddlers.
• Health officials are scheduled to provide an update Friday on Governor Newsom’s declaration of a state of emergency over bird flu. Public health experts say the declaration is likely a good thing. 
• Northern California advocates are suing the U.S. State Department for failing to evacuate Americans trapped in Gaza. They argue that the U.S. has quickly evacuated Americans from other conflict zones, including Israeli-Americans after the October 7 Hamas attacks last year.

Lack Of Communication Over Updated Building Code Leaves Child Care Centers In Limbo

The renovations are done. Diaper changing tables and cribs are in place. Teachers are hired. Dozens of preschools and child care centers across California are just waiting for the licenses they need to care for infants and toddlers, but a change in state fire regulations has disrupted their operations and forced them to turn away or delay enrolling thousands of children.

“We already have a shortage of infant and toddler care. This just exasperates it,” said Stacey Scarborough, director of an Early Head Start program for Venice Family Clinic, a health care and social service organization in Los Angeles. She said her agency had almost finished converting the ground floor of a homeless family shelter into an Early Head Start center when she heard about an updated state building code, limiting five babies and toddlers per classroom unless the child care facility has a sprinkler system, fire walls and other fire safety equipment.

Architects and contractors didn’t know they had to install sprinklers, which meant Scarborough would need to spend more time and money to make the upgrade — or lower enrollment and staff and risk losing her federal grant.

The regulation went into effect in 2023, but a lack of communication by state regulators left child care centers in the dark. They found out about it earlier this year when they applied for licenses to care for children under 3 and failed to obtain fire clearance. The rule change comes at a time when many child care centers are seeking to serve more younger kids as they lose 3- and 4-year-olds to California’s expansion of transitional kindergarten and other public preschool programs.

Public Health Experts Optimistic Emergency Declaration Can Help With Bird Flu Outbreak 

This week, Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in response to the ongoing spread of bird flu among dairy cattle.

State health officials are expected to release more details about what that will mean at a briefing Friday. But Alyssa Laxamana is hopeful. She works at California’s only lab testing animals and milk for bird flu. She says she’s been struggling to keep up. “I have worked 12 hour days. A couple of my other co-workers have worked 13 hour days, 10 hour days,” she said.

Dr. Peter Chin-Hong is an infectious disease specialist at UC San Francisco. “We can control the speed of the train, and we can put buffers on the rails so that the train moves slower, and I think that’s what that emergency declaration is trying to do,” he said. Chin-Hong hopes it will help different agencies collaborate, and lead to more incentives for testing.

Advocates File Lawsuit Over Situation In Gaza

Northern California advocates are suing the U.S government for failing to rescue Americans trapped in Gaza.

Nafez Aboelreich is the brother of one of the plaintiffs, a California woman who became trapped during a trip to visit family last year, and is still there. “In one situation they were bombing around them and she was hiding and running with my brothers and nephews,” he said. “She sustained injuries to her ankle that was fractured and they had to carry her around because she couldn’t walk on it.”

The lawsuit claims the State Department discriminated against Americans of Palestinian origin by abandoning them in a war zone, and not making the same effort that it would for Americans of different origins in similar situations.