Wisconsin Department of Children and Families - Division of Early Care and Education
Bureau of Child Care Subsidy Administration
Wisconsin Shares Handbook
Parents can self-declare their child care need for all approved activities. Parents can also self-declare whether they meet the policies for education hours to be included in the authorized hours when a child is in Head Start or 4K (see 16.1.1.3). For parent education, the schedule for classes with set log in times is collected as part of approved activity verification (see 7.8) to determine alignment with the self-declared child care need (see 16.1.1.1) but the schedule does not need to be entered in CSAW or case comments.
Child care need includes any time the child is at the child care provider related to the parent’s approved activity, including sleep hours for the parent (see 16.1.1.2), gap time (see 16.1.1.5), travel time (see 16.1.1.6), etc. These times must be included in the total hours when entering the Approved Hours in CSAW.
| Note: Approved activity verification (i.e., class schedule, W-2 Employability Plan (EP), pay stubs, etc.) is collected during the eligibility determination process (see 7.8). Agency workers may view the Electronic Case File (ECF) for scanned documents. |
If the parent does not know their child care need for new employment with a varying or on-call schedule, the agency worker should write the authorization based on the parent’s best estimate. Authorizations must still be written for the longest period possible (see 15.3).
If the parent has on-call employment, the authorized hours must only include hours when the parent actually works and not include hours when the parent is waiting to be called. If the parent has a varying schedule or travel time need, the child is eligible to receive the highest weekly hours within a month for which the parent needs child care (see 16.1).
| Example 1 (Varying schedule): Daniel has the following work schedule: 20 hours in Week One (1), 45 hours in Week Two (2), 25 hours in Week Three (3), and 15 hours in Week Four (4). The agency worker enters 45 hours as the authorized hours in CSAW. |
| Example 2 (On-call employment): Kris is a nurse and works 36 hours every week. She is also on call every other Saturday. The authorized hours entered in CSAW do not include the Saturday on-call times. If Kris is called into work, she can request additional hours after the days she works for the hours she needed. |
Authorizations of 20 weekly hours or less are part-time authorizations; full-time authorizations are more than 20 weekly hours. The weekly approved authorization hours are multiplied by 4.348125 to determine the final monthly authorized hours, which is converted to a part-time or full-time subsidy amount (see 18.5).
Parents with a child care need of more than 50 weekly hours are eligible for an above full-time authorization, which is a full-time subsidy amount with an additional weekly add-on for the hours above 50 weekly hours up to 75 weekly hours.
Education
For education, parents must provide the class schedule for all classes with set in-person or online log in times throughout the week. Workers need to collect the schedule to verify the parent’s approved activity (see 7.8) but do not need to enter the schedules into CSAW or document the schedule in case comments.
Authorized hours for education are based on the total number of class hours, as well as any other work experience, clinicals, or school hours where an instructor provides or supervises the parent’s activity. Study time must not be included in the authorized hours unless the parent has a verified learning disability. A learning disability must be verified by the parent’s current or previous educational institution or a medical professional. If the parent has a verified learning disability, the authorization may include study time for a maximum of one (1) hour per week per enrolled credit.
Study time must be included in the authorized hours for parents who are participating in W-2 (see 5.1.3) or Tribal TANF (see 5.1.4) and have study hours included on their Employability Plan (EP) or Individual Self-Sufficiency Plan (ISP).
Authorized hours for self-paced online education are limited to one (1) hour per week per enrolled credit. Additional hours can be authorized if the institution documents that the self-paced course is delivered over an accelerated period with more hours of instruction provided per week. For accelerated programs, the authorized hours can include the weekly hours needed for the parent to complete asynchronous classes (i.e., prerecorded lectures), as well as any other work experience, clinicals, or school hours where an instructor provides or supervises the parent’s activity. Time for homework or other class commitments must not be included in the authorized hours because these are not hours of instruction provided or supervised by an instructor.
| Example 3 (Blended learning): Ashley is attending college and has three (3) classes. Class A meets in-person on campus on Tuesday and Thursday. Class B allows students to choose if they will attend in-person or virtually and the class meets Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Ashley has elected to attend the class virtually. Class C is entirely online and is not part of an accelerated program. Ashley will need to complete assignments for Class C on a predetermined schedule, but there are no scheduled class times. The authorized hours include the hours Ashley needs for Class A and Class B and up to one (1) hour per week per enrolled credit for Class C. Ashley will need to give the agency worker her class schedule for Class A and Class B to verify her approved activity, but the agency worker does not need to document the schedule. |
| Example 4 (Accelerated program): King is enrolled in an accelerated nursing program. The program expects students to complete 40 hours per week of class and study time. Some classes have set log-in times, while other classes are asynchronous (King can watch a prerecorded lecture at any time). King also has some clinical hours. There are strict deadlines for completing coursework. King needs child care for his child, Sasha, for class and study time. Sasha’s authorization includes the hours King has for the scheduled classes, as well as the weekly hours he needs for asynchronous instruction. Because this is an accelerated program, the asynchronous class time can exceed the one (1) hour per week per enrolled credit limit. Sasha’s authorization also includes time for King’s clinical hours. However, hours for study time are not included in Sasha’s authorized hours because these are not hours of instruction provided or supervised by an instructor. |
16.1.1.1 Approved Activity and Child Care Need Alignment
16.1.1.3 Co-located Head Start and 4 K School Programs
16.1.1.4 School-Age Children Authorizations
16.1.1.5 Gaps Between Approved Activities
This section last updated 11/1/2024