Curious State Ratios?

[Springdaze]

how are you supposed to make any money with that few!?

[Preschool/daycare teacher]

Birth to age 10 is 1:10 (no more than 3 of the 10 can be under 16 months, and they must be walking). Ages 3-10 is 1:12. The total allowed is 12 plus 3 during the school year who are enrolled in at least 1st grade. So I'm guessing that means one provider could have a total of 15 children ages 3 and up, as long as 3 of them are in 1st grade or older. I think they need to re-evaluate the ratios. It would only be asking for something to happen if someone took on the maximum ratio. Oh, and I think your own children age out when they turn 7 yrs old. So in our case, I think we could have 18 children to one person, if you count the provider's children (age 7,8,9), who do not count in the ratio.

[Rachel]

I don't live in the US but my regs are 1:5, but only 3 can be under 6 months. There are times when I can have a 6th (when someone is sick and they split up her group, or maternity leave and the group is split, social services child that needs a spot, etc), but never more than 6. Daycare is only aged 14 weeks - approximately 3.5. We have universal pre-k and a December cutoff date, and the daycare calendar runs by the school calendar (ie: I get a group for a year, and they are usually all in the same "school" year). The oldest kids in daycare are the winter babies the year after they turn 3. If they are turning 3 December or earlier they go to pre-k and not daycare.

[mac60]

People complain about the cost of daycare to us, they need to complain to the problem, the governing bodies that make up these stupid ratio regulations. Continuing with these crazy ratios will do nothing but drive up the cost of daycare or close many down. You have to be able to make a descent wage to do this job.

Ironic that the government will not control how many kids an irresponsible person will create while we the working people pay taxes to support them, yet government will limit the number of children an experienced caregiver can take care of. Go figure.

[MyAngels]

Our state allows up to 8, but unless you take SA it's really effectively a max of 6 depending on the ages:

b) A caregiver alone may care for:

1) A mixed age group consisting of:
A) Up to 8 children under the age of 12, of which
B) Up to 5 children may be under the age of 5, of which
C) Up to 3 children may be under 24 months of age.

2) A mixed age group consisting of:
A) Up to 8 children under the age of 12, of which
B) Up to 6 children may be under the age of 5, of which
C) Up to 2 children may be under 30 months of age.

[beachgrl]

For me it's a total of 8, with three of the total being school age. The max under five is five total and any of our own kids under SA count the ratio..

[beachgrl]

That's for licensed, you can care for two children without being licensced

[DaisyMamma]

a lot of you have some lenient ratios!

Connecticut:
9 total at certain times

Two kids under age 2
Four under age 5
3 school age BUT only a total of 6 kids in the summer

In the summer my schoolage kids dont count, but during the school year they do.

The fortunate part of the low ratio is that CT will get an average of $200 for a FT kid