Family Day Care

Millions of working parents make a child-care decision each year. But many say they feel they do not always make the best choice.Half the mothers surveyed recently by Working Mother said they had been forced to change their child-care provider at least twice in 1992, a process the magazine called "living on luck."Working parents have three basic options if they must pay for child care: family day care, in which they take their children to a sitter's home; day care, in which they take them to a center where the staff cares for many children, and in-home care, in which someone is hired to live in or to travel to the home.

Charles Preslipsky, who helped run a family-owned day care center in Odenton for 50 years, died of heart failure Dec. 15 at Baltimore Washington Medical Center in Glen Burnie. The Odenton resident was 87. Born in Sarver, Pa., Mr. Preslipsky graduated from Tarentum High School in 1939. After graduation, he worked for two years in the Sun coal mines in western Pennsylvania outside Pittsburgh -- the same mines that his father and older brother had worked. With his brother, he joined the Army in 1943 and served as an X-ray technician during World War II at the hospital at Fort Meade.

A 39-year-old Taneytown man, who sexually abused a child enrolled in his wife's family day care operation, pleaded guilty yesterday to child abuse.John Warren Gesell, of the 400 block of Red Tulip Court, molested the child, now 12 years old, for two years, sometime between 1986 and 1990, according to a statement of facts read in court by Assistant State's Attorney Kathi Hill.The plea was entered before Circuit Judge Luke K. Burns Jr., who scheduled sentencing for Nov. 16.Ms. Hill said the state plans to request an eight-year sentence with four years suspended, the maximum within the sentencing guidelines.

Meetings on county plan are scheduled The county has scheduled community Grassroots Gatherings to get residents involved in the Carroll County Comprehensive Plan. All meetings are at 6:30 p.m. unless noted. The first Grassroots Gatherings meeting for Uniontown/Bark Hill is scheduled for Tuesday at Uniontown United Methodist Church, 3405 Uniontown Road. Second meetings are being held for the following communities: Manchester: tomorrow, Manchester Elementary School. Finksburg/Sandymount: 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sandymount Elementary School Media Center.

IMAGINE THE REACTION if a fire injured children in a public school where officials had not bothered to follow the fire code. Parents would be calling for heads to roll.Yet some parents of the six children injured in a fire at Diana Smith's illegal Parkville family day care -- where Baltimore County fire officials found a long list of fire code violations -- feel authorities are being too harsh in citing the woman yesterday and making an issue of the fact that she was not licensed to care for children.

Family Day Care Providers And The LawAs a resident of the state of Maryland, I am required to follow its laws. If I undertake an activity which demands that certain procedures be followed to assure that I am within the laws, I had better be sure to have proof that I have followed these procedures. Otherwise, it will be assumed that I am not undertaking the activity legally. It is interesting to note, however, that some groups are apparently immune to such stipulations. One such group is the board of directors of the Mayefield Homeowners Association in Bel Air.I am referring to the lawsuit that this board has filed against myself and my family in an attempt to remove my in-home family day care from this neighborhood.

Alease B. Lockley, who supervised family day care centers and was active in the affairs of her Northwest Baltimore church, died of lung cancer June 24 at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The Ashburton resident was 74. Born Alease Carr in Baltimore, she was raised near the old Richmond Armory and Market on North Howard Street. She was a 1949 graduate of Frederick Douglass High School and earned a degree in sociology in 1953 from what is now Morgan State University. She worked in the medical records department of Johns Hopkins Hospital until 1962 when she became director of Christian education at Cherry Hill Presbyterian Church.

MARYLAND wants all its family day care providers to be legal -- and that means licensed -- so the state is granting amnesty to unlicensed providers until Feb. 29. These providers can begin the licensing process in the next two months without paying penalties for operating an unlicensed day care home.No one has any idea how many people without licenses are caring for children in their homes, said Roberta Ward, assistant director for programs for the state's Child Care Administration. But she is sure the number is high.

THE Clinton administration is sick to death of it. The president ran on the economy, but all anyone wants to talk about these days is who's taking care of politicians' kids.So it seems fitting to take a break from the witch hunts surrounding who paid what when to the sitter to discuss a pressing economic issue.Child care.The United States needs a national child care system for all families, from the poor to the well-to-do. If the withdrawal of two talented women lawyers from consideration for service in the Clinton administration because of baby-sitter stuff ends in a welter of class wars and gender hostilities, we will have missed an opportunity to begin a process that should have started two decades ago.By 1995, two-thirds of the women with preschool children are expected to be working outside their homes.

THE DEATHS of two babies at an Eastern Shore family day care home would be easier to cope with if some regulatory deficiency were to blame. Indeed, the case has prompted cries for more frequent inspections of day care homes and centers. Lax regulations, however, were not the problem and, hence, are not the answer.As child advocacy groups note, Maryland has some of the nation's toughest rules governing child care facilities. The requirements for a license to run a family day care cover everything from splintered wood on the outside of the house to the condition of toilet seats.

Alease B. Lockley, who supervised family day care centers and was active in the affairs of her Northwest Baltimore church, died of lung cancer June 24 at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The Ashburton resident was 74. Born Alease Carr in Baltimore, she was raised near the old Richmond Armory and Market on North Howard Street. She was a 1949 graduate of Frederick Douglass High School and earned a degree in sociology in 1953 from what is now Morgan State University. She worked in the medical records department of Johns Hopkins Hospital until 1962 when she became director of Christian education at Cherry Hill Presbyterian Church.

THE DEATHS of two babies at an Eastern Shore family day care home would be easier to cope with if some regulatory deficiency were to blame. Indeed, the case has prompted cries for more frequent inspections of day care homes and centers. Lax regulations, however, were not the problem and, hence, are not the answer.As child advocacy groups note, Maryland has some of the nation's toughest rules governing child care facilities. The requirements for a license to run a family day care cover everything from splintered wood on the outside of the house to the condition of toilet seats.

THE ROOF fell in, figuratively, on the Carroll Child Care Centers in Westminster this month.Literally, it was the abrupt finding of a structural problem with the roof in its new building that forced the center to close for two weeks of repair.More than 90 youngsters (and their anxious parents) faced the daunting challenge of finding an alternative care-provider or taking off from work on short notice.The scramble for help from baby sitters, friends, relatives and even scarcely known neighbors was frantic.

IMAGINE THE REACTION if a fire injured children in a public school where officials had not bothered to follow the fire code. Parents would be calling for heads to roll.Yet some parents of the six children injured in a fire at Diana Smith's illegal Parkville family day care -- where Baltimore County fire officials found a long list of fire code violations -- feel authorities are being too harsh in citing the woman yesterday and making an issue of the fact that she was not licensed to care for children.

A Parkville woman who is suspected of running an unlicensed family care center when a fire broke out Thursday, injuring six children, may be among the hundreds -- even thousands -- of unlicensed child care providers statewide, an enforcement headache for state regulators.State officials say that licensing requirements -- including fire and safety inspections and limits on the number of infants -- are designed to avert such disasters. But officials acknowledge they have no accurate count of the state's unlicensed family day care operations.

If information is power, then people concerned with child care in Maryland have just been handed a scepter of sorts.The Maryland Committee for Children and the Maryland Child Care Resource Network have produced a comprehensive report on child care demographics, bringing together for the first time all the data needed to identify and analyze child care trends in every Maryland jurisdiction. This is a critical tool for designing services that better meet the needs of families and children, which are great.

After meeting with day-care providers upset with the fees they say are too high in some towns, County Commissioner Julia W. Gouge has started a task force to encourage more licensed day-care homes, while controlling the impact on towns and neighborhoods."

A Parkville woman who is suspected of running an unlicensed family care center when a fire broke out Thursday, injuring six children, may be among the hundreds -- even thousands -- of unlicensed child care providers statewide, an enforcement headache for state regulators.State officials say that licensing requirements -- including fire and safety inspections and limits on the number of infants -- are designed to avert such disasters. But officials acknowledge they have no accurate count of the state's unlicensed family day care operations.

A 39-year-old Taneytown man, who sexually abused a child enrolled in his wife's family day care operation, pleaded guilty yesterday to child abuse.John Warren Gesell, of the 400 block of Red Tulip Court, molested the child, now 12 years old, for two years, sometime between 1986 and 1990, according to a statement of facts read in court by Assistant State's Attorney Kathi Hill.The plea was entered before Circuit Judge Luke K. Burns Jr., who scheduled sentencing for Nov. 16.Ms. Hill said the state plans to request an eight-year sentence with four years suspended, the maximum within the sentencing guidelines.