Wisconsin Department of Children and Families - Division of Early Care and Education
Bureau of Early Care Regulation
Child Care Licensing Procedure Manual
Monitoring results from visits to child care centers and day camps is documented in the iPad-based licensing checklist mobile application (hereafter referred to as the mobile app). From the iPad, information collected at a visit synchronizes directly into the Wisconsin Child Care Regulatory System (WISCCRS), the database that stores child care compliance information and serves as the electronic facility file. When the licensing specialist enters an issue date into WISCCRS, visit results identified on the CFS-294 and CFS-785 are transferred to the Regulated Child Care and YoungStar Public Search website by the following day.
At each monitoring visit, the licensing specialist observes and documents compliance with a subset of the administrative rules applicable to the facility. Using the mobile app, the licensing specialist makes an electronic entry to record whether each administrative rule is met, unmet, or not applicable to the particular program under review. (In some cases, a rule may be left blank, as described in section 4.2.) A licensing specialist may also determine whether a rule is met or unmet without making a visit to the program, based on a review of a self-report of an injury or other reportable incident.
The licensing specialist also enters descriptive compliance information in the mobile app to document the licensing specialist’s observations. When a rule is not met, the specific rule violation described by the licensing specialist in the External Comments field in the mobile app is the documentation that will appear on the CFS-294, in the column labeled Rule/Statute Number - Noncompliance Statement. This information appears on the public search website. The licensing specialist may also record comments and notes in the Internal Comments field in the mobile app, but comments entered here are for the licensing specialist’s use only and will not appear on the CFS-294 or on the public website.
At the conclusion of each monitoring visit, the licensing specialist reviews and clarifies the results of the visit with the child care licensee or person designated in charge on the day of the visit. During this exit interview, the licensing specialist confirms what will likely be cited. The mobile app compiles data on the number and type of rules reviewed and the number of rules met at the time of the visit, which may be shared with the program. Identification of the administrative rules that are recorded as met, however, is not currently displayed on the public search website.
Monitoring information, including compliance statements and violations, remains on the public website for three years.
This page last updated 12/2018.