Gov. Kate Brown has quietly ordered regulators to make child care facilities test for lead in drinking water, reversing an earlier decision by her own appointed policy board on early childhood education.
The move represents the first noticeable step toward increased oversight by Oregon’s top elected official in response to lapses in child safety regulations.
Brown has directed Miriam Calderon, Oregon’s new Early Learning System director, to make safety the top priority. And Calderon said her immediate focus is strengthening the state’s child care licensing program.
Oregon must “accelerate enforcement action to ensure safety and quality” in day care facilities, Calderon said in a statement. Calderon also pledged to increase the number of licensing specialists who perform safety inspections and said Oregon must conduct more unannounced inspections.
The declarations from Brown and Calderon follow months of reporting by The Oregonian/OregonLive examining gaps and failures in the state’s regulation of child care facilities.
But state officials did not trumpet their newfound pronouncements of improved safety. Instead, Calderon announced the news in an Oct. 12 press release with limited distribution and posted the information to her agency’s obscure website.
In the announcement, Calderon also highlighted the death of an infant in a child care setting but provided no details, other than to say the provider’s license had been suspended on an emergency basis.
Last month, Calderon raised no public objections when Oregon’s Early Learning Council, which sets policy, unanimously voted not to require day cares to test drinking water for lead. Lead is a neurotoxin that is especially dangerous for children younger than 6.
The council’s chairwoman, Sue Miller, told The Oregonian/OregonLive that the decision not to require testing was “in the best interests of children and families.” Water testing would present a “huge burden” for day cares and could force some to close, she said.
The state of Washington dismissed such logic, calling the costs “relatively inexpensive considering the risk to children that it may reveal.”
Oregon’s decision stood for just two weeks before Brown intervened, according to Calderon’s news release.
