Wisconsin Department of Children and Families - Division of Early Care and Education
Bureau of Early Care Regulation
Child Care Licensing Procedure Manual
Anything entered in the comments field must convey a professional and objective tone. The comments should be factual, accurate, concise, concrete, specific and recorded in such a way that the meaning is clear to persons unfamiliar with the facility. Comments must adhere to spelling and grammatical standards. There should not be misspellings or grammatical errors that hinder understanding of the comments. Any references to colleagues and partners must be respectful.
Keep in mind the following:
Include relevant, factual and objective information, based on a determination using one’s professional judgment that will help a reader understand the record. Information documented in comments must be verifiable and not overly detailed;
Avoid opinion statements;
Avoid a conversational or too casual tone;
Keep unnecessary or personal information about the provider or staff out of comments;
Never include unprofessional or negative references to colleagues or partners;
Avoid using acronyms (without definition), abbreviations, jargon and meaningless phrases;
Do not record personal biases and feelings about the situation or the behavior of the persons involved in the situation, derogatory comments and subjective observations such as “I feel” and “I sense”, or second hand information that is not verifiable.
Avoid speculation about a person’s motivations.
Make sure that the comments recorded in WISCCRS would not cause personal embarrassment for you, the provider or others if the comments were made public in an open records or discovery request.
Profane language or quotes made by the provider may be recorded in comments but the licensing specialist may wish to mask the profanity with a euphemism or other innocuous word or expression in place of the offensive word or words.
Information contained in the comments fields in WISCCRS may be used as supporting documentation in an administrative hearing concerning a contested enforcement. Any information documented in the comments fields must be consistent with information put forth in the enforcement action documents.
This page last updated 03/2018.