Child-care providers say new pool regulations that go into effect Friday will mean only large day-care centers will be able to afford to open their pools to children this summer.

The Legislature directed the Department of Health and Human Services Tuesday to implement emergency regulations developed in response to the March pool drowning of a 3-year-old boy at the Koala Child Kare center in Westbrook. The new regulations require providers to have a certified lifeguard, in addition to a child-care attendant, for a body of water more than 4 feet deep.

While advocates for the new rules say they are necessary to ensure the safety of children in day-care pools this summer, the owners of many home-based child-care providers say the rules are cost-prohibitive for their small operations, where providers only care for a handful of children.

“It’s going to put us home-care providers out of business,” said Janet Lampron, who cares for six children in her Standish home Monday through Friday. “I’m going to have to close my pool.”

Agnes Beane, who operates Aggie’s Daycare out of her house on Lowell Street in Westbrook, said parents have pulled half of her school-age children from her care this summer because she won’t have a pool for them. She said the lost business will cost her about $450 each week this summer.

Beane said she can’t afford to hire a lifeguard to let kids use her pool, and parents can’t afford for Beane to pass the cost on to them.

Allyson Dean, associate director of Maine Roads to Quality, a child-care development center at the University of Southern Maine Muskie School of Public Service, said it is possible for small, home-based providers to team up and share the costs of lifeguards if the regulations are too costly for them individually.

Dean said she understood the regulations may seem like a burden to family child-care providers, but said, “Anything that improves the health and safety of children is positive.” Dean didn’t want to see water activities limited because learning to swim is important for children, but thought the regulations were appropriate.

The new regulations were developed after Andrew Thurston, a 3-year-old boy enrolled at the Koala Child Kare Center on Spring Street, drowned in a pool on the watch of a woman whose swim instructor certification had lapsed nearly 30 years ago. A state investigation ruled the incident was a result of neglect on the part of the day-care center.

The death prompted the Department of Health and Human Services to review its regulations concerning pools in child-care settings. The state put together “a fairly well-rounded group” to look at the regulations, according to John Martins, a spokesman for the department. The group included day-care center providers but no home-based providers. Martins said home-based providers were invited but did not attend.

A second work-group meeting, held with the Child Care Advisory Council – which advises the Legislature and the human services department regarding child-care services – did include a home-based child-care representative, and recommendations were sent to the Department of Health and Human Services for a final draft of the emergency regulations.

The rules were released first on May 17. Notices of the changes were mailed out to providers around May 21, and printed in newspapers around May 23. The regulations will be looked at again in next year’s legislative session before they are permanently implemened.

The new rules include requirements for providers to register pools with the state, receive training and certification if conducting certain water activities, and to post pool rules and other documentation. There are separate sets of rules for day-care centers and home-based providers.

Home-based providers, known technically as family child-care providers, usually consist of just one provider taking care of 10 children or less. Home-based providers make an average monthly income of $2,020, according to a 2004 market study completed for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, and usually pay for snacks and meals for the children.

“Overhead for home day care is high,” said Beane, who suggested that she could stop providing meals for the children she cares for in order to pay for a lifeguard at her pool, but saw that as just another expense for the parents, who would then have to provide their children bagged lunches.

Cheryl Carrier, owner of the Toddle Inn chain of day-care centers, disagrees, and said there were “very few expenses” when she was a home-based provider. “Day-care homes do better financially” than day care centers, Carrier said.

The Toddle Inn has five locations in southern Maine with two more opening this year. Two locations have pools, and an aquatics director has handled the center’s pool policy for nine years at its Scarborough location.

Carrier, along with her aquatics director and a representative from the YMCA day care center in Bath, were the providers who joined state Rep. Timothy Driscoll, D-Westbrook, as part of the first work-group meeting.

“We’re very happy with what they’re doing,” Carrier said about the new pool regulations, noting that previously the state had required little more than “keep it clean and keep it locked.” Carrier said she submitted her 3-inch thick policy on pool use at the Toddle Inn chain as part of the deliberations, and the state took the center’s policy seriously.

Though the meetings Carrier attended were open, and the second meeting included a home-based care representative, Beane felt that “it seems like day-care centers have a lot more input than we do.”

Many home-based providers are concerned that they have little chance to make it to the meetings.

“At a day-care facility, the director can go,” said Elaine Girardin, another family child-care provider in Westbrook. Girardin will also not be opening her pool this summer, and will not be attending the next public meeting on the regulations in Augusta on June 11, after the emergency regulations have been implemented. “It’s not feasible for me to attend something like that,” she said.

“The meeting is on a Monday, when we’re all working,” said Lampron. She said it would be too difficult to have the six families she provides for find alternative care for a day.

Catherine Cobb, director of Licensing and Regulatory Services at the Department of Health and Human Services, said that if providers can’t make it to the June 11 public hearing – or any other meeting – the providers can submit statements via writing before or up to 10 days after the hearing.

Dean, from Maine Roads to Quality, suggested other avenues for the providers to get involved in, pointing to the Maine Family Child Care Association and the Child Care Advisory Council.

Some family child-care providers are taking the emergency regulations in stride, including Girardin, who said she will likely just use a sprinkler this summer to keep the kids cool. Nonetheless, Girardin thought the state “reacted with their guts rather than their brains.”

Michelle Godbout-Clock, a family child-care provider in Gray, also took the regulations in stride, saying she, too, would likely use a sprinkler this summer. But Godbout-Clock, in an earlier interview before the new regulations were released, had expected that her own policy on pool use would go above anything the state released. She hopes to continue hiring a pool instructor for swim lessons as she has in years past, but she will not be opening her pool otherwise on hot days to cool off.

“It’s going to be hard when it’s warm,” Godbout-Clock said.

Family child care provider Elaine Gerardin, who operates My Daycare out of her home on Saco Street in Westbrook, reads to six children in the early afternoon before nap time. Gerardin will be resorting to sprinklers this year after the state placed emergency restrictions on pool use in child care homes and centers. Gerardin said she thinks the state “reacted with its guts, and not its brains.”

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