Wisconsin Department of Children and Families - Division of Early Care and Education
Bureau of Early Care Regulation
Child Care Licensing Procedure Manual
Approximately one year after the announced initial on-site visit and walk-through, routine annual monitoring of public school programs begins. A minimum of one on-site monitoring visit must be conducted each year to each public school program participating in YoungStar. The monitoring visit involves a review for compliance with all group child care health and safety rules included in the Annual Health and Safety Rule Tag.
Monitoring for the purpose of determining the public school program’s compliance with health and safety administrative rules may be achieved through unannounced or announced on-site visits. Announcing the visit ahead of time is appropriate under the following circumstances:
The purpose of the visit is to conduct the initial on-site visit to the public school program to meet the staff and make a preliminary assessment of the program’s current compliance;
There is a need for a second follow-up visit after a routine annual unannounced visit because there are rules that could not be monitored at the unannounced visit that still must be reviewed;
The licensing specialist has offered to provide a technical assistance visit;
The purpose of the visit is to review caregiver background checks contained in the staff records that are kept at a location other than the public school center;
Because all rules contained in the Annual Health and Safety Rule Tag must be reviewed annually, the licensing specialist wants to ensure that everything needed to complete the compliance review will be available on the day of the visit;
As an alternative to informing the program of the upcoming visit date, the licensing specialist may simply announce the time frame within which the visit will occur (e.g., the second week of the next month), so that the program can prepare for the visit.
Each monitoring visit to a public school program begins with an observational walk-through by the licensing specialist, as is current monitoring practice in licensed programs. The walk-through provides the licensing specialist with an overall impression of the program and may point to specific administrative rule areas that require more thorough monitoring on that day.
At the first annual monitoring visit following the initial on-site visit, the licensing specialist refers to the DCF-5154 that was completed at the initial visit, with particular focus on those rules left blank because they were unmet at the initial visit.
3. Routine Annual Monitoring of Public School Programs
3.1. When All Rules Cannot Be Monitored at the Annual Visit
3.2. Observation of Violations Not Included in the Annual Health and Safety Rule Tag
This page last updated 06/2018.