Texas Childcare: Do We Care about the Safety of Our Nails More than Our Children?

The estimated 1 million Texas children in child care will likely soon be at least a little safer, thanks to a new bill that triples the number of pre-service training hours required for child care workers.

With the increase, workers will be required to take 24 hours of training. The number of hours required is still quite low, especially when you consider that aspiring manicurists in the Lone Star State must have 600 hours of training.

A last-minute addendum to the bill, which now awaits the governor’s signature, also extended the training requirement to in-home daycares.

The fact that this strengthening of the law was not included in the original legislation is quite stunning, since in-home daycares have been in the news since four Houston area children were killed when a fire broke out at an in-home daycare operated by 22-year-old Jessica Tata.

The fire, authorities have said, started after a pot of oil caught fire on the stove in the home. Tata was out shopping at Target at the time and the children were left unattended. Tata fled to her native Nigeria for a period of time after the fire but has since been returned.

Child care advocate Melanie Rubin told the Houston Chronicle that strengthening regulations for in-home daycares in Texas is important because the homes often give parents a false sense of security. Parents see the homelike feel and believe their children are safer than they would be in a center, even though centers face more stringent requirements.

There is something very wrong when more care is given to protest people’s nails than their children. The latest legislation out of Texas certainly does not address all the needs of children in childcare, but it is at least a step in the right direction.