TOM THUMB FIGHTS AGAIN
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Anchorage Daily News (AK)-March 2, 1990
Author/Byline: DUSTY RHODES
Daily News reporter
Staff
Edition: Final
Section: Lifestyles
Page: G1
In 1956, Margaret Green opened her first Tom Thumb preschool, enrolling about a dozen children. Over the years, she changed the name to Tom Thumb Montessori Schools, expanded and added elementary classes. Now she owns and operates five schools with a combined enrollment of 320.
Otherwise, though, little has changed about the way Green operates this business. She herself has seen to that. Whenever any agency the Alaska State Board of Education, the state Department of Education, the Anchorage borough or the municipality has attempted to add regulations that would increase her costs, Green has fought to keep her schools operating just as she established them. And every time despite the fact that the state has received significant complaints about incidents at her schools (see accompanying story) Green won.
Now she's pulling on the gloves again. For decades, her schools and similar programs have enjoyed an exemption from municipal licensing. But a childcare ordinance currently before the Anchorage Assembly would, if passed, require Tom Thumb and other fullday preschools to meet the same licensing regulations that govern all local childcare centers. The assembly is scheduled to hold a public hearing on the proposed ordinance Tuesday night.
Proponents of the ordinance say these new regulations are simply minimal health and safety standards that should be met by all fullday programs for young children. "It's sort of like if you go to a restaurant, you expect there's a certain standard of cleanliness, that you won't get sick from eating the food," says Virginia Samson, chairwoman of the municipal Health and Human Services Commission subcommittee that formulated the proposed regulations. "It's the same with child care. There should be certain standards in place."
Green's schools are not the only programs that would be affected by the ordinance: The municipal Parks and Recreation Department's summer program, the school district's two childcare programs, several Head Start programs and the preschool portion of Anchorage Christian Schools would also be subject to municipal licensing requirements if the ordinance is passed.
But the school district has already had both of its programs licensed by the municipality, and all Head Start programs are either licensed or in the process of being licensed. And directors of the other programs are not fighting the proposed ordinance the way Green is.
"I don't want any change of status, because our parents are very happy through all these years," Green says. "We just want to remain status quo. And that's why I've fought and I'll continue to battle this as long as I can."
How many preschoolers can one adult safely handle? That is the question Margaret Green and various agencies have tangled over for almost 20 years.
The municipal Health and Human Services Department and the state Department of Education recommend a ratio of one adult for every 10 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds. Green contends that her teachers can handle 16 or 20 preschool-age children.
The municipality and the state base their ratio on numerous studies, on guidelines published by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, and on nationally accepted norms. Currently 31 states require a staff/child ratio of 1to10 or less for this age group. Green argues that her teachers are better trained than the average childcare worker and therefore able to supervise more children safely.
Most of Green's teachers' qualifications do exceed state Department of Education guidelines for private schools. The DOE requires only that employees hired to teach be 19 or older (16 if they're in a training program) and receive some training from their employer.
But on Nov. 27, she testified before the Health and Human Services Commission that more than 80 percent of her teachers have Alaska teaching certificates. After the Daily News obtained evidence that she had overestimated the number of certified teachers at her school, Green acknowledged that only five of her 20 teachers have current teaching certificates. Three others have expired certificates, and Green says two others have teaching degrees from abroad, Mexico and the Philippines.
All of her teachers have "some college work, though not necessarily in early childhood," Green says. She also puts her teachers through her own training program, holding monthly teacher meetings and conducting Saturday morning Montessori sessions for new teachers as long as needed. "I don't set a specific number of hours because it depends on the person," she says.
But state-certified teachers at other DOE preschools say no amount of training can equip a teacher to supervise 16 or more 3 to 5-year-olds.
Peg Redding, co-director of the Anchorage School District's King Career Center preschool program, laughs at the notion. "Sure, you can handle them," she says. "You can herd 'em, like a herd of cattle.
"When you have that many children, all you're doing is group management. You're not attending to individual needs. And with young children, it's critical. Birth to age 5 is the most critical time in a child's life. I think it's a real disservice to children to have that many with one teacher, because they don't get the attention they need."
Pamela Keller, director of Zion Lutheran Preschool, says she has an education degree, but that she couldn't handle more than 10 preschoolers without the help of an aide. "Not well, anyway," she says. "If you're working constantly on classroom control, education isn't happening. With the low ratio, there's a lot more learning going on."
There are indications that high ratios can lead to even more serious problems, as complaints against Green's Tom Thumb schools show.
Several complaints filed against the schools describe children being allowed to kick or hit each other without adult intervention. Other complaints describe teachers as appearing "burned out."
In 1985, Anchorage police officer Bill Reeder investigated a case at the Spenard Road Tom Thumb involving at least 11 preschoolers who were engaging in inappropriate sexual behavior over a period of several months in the school's closets and bathrooms and under blankets during nap time. "It was one of those things that haunts you for life," Reeder says now.
After interviewing the children, Reeder concluded that no adult at Tom Thumb was involved, and about eight months later, one of the preschoolers' uncles was convicted of sexually abusing the child. "There's a good possibility he could have been our source," Reeder says.
But even Reeder, who was unfamiliar with any question of staff/child ratios, points to that exact issue as a factor in the case. "Bottom line is: More teachers could have kept a better eye on the kids and might have prevented it," he says.
Green, however, says her teachers "keep a pretty close eye on the children," and adds that the case was "blown out of proportion."
"That's just something that happened," she says, "and I think our school picked up and went ahead. . . . I just kind of obliterate that from my mind and look to the future."
This debate over the number of children one adult can safely supervise has become the focus of what is actually a broader question posed by the proposed municipal childcare ordinance: If a preschool is already certified by the state Department of Education, does it also need to be licensed by the municipal Health and Human Services Department?
For decades, preschools certified by the DOE have been exempt from municipal licensing. The proposed ordinance would continue to exempt programs that keep children three hours a day or less, but would require fullday programs to be licensed by the municipality.
Mia Oxley, executive director of Child Care Connection, a nonprofit childcare resource agency, chaired the task force work group that proposed removing that exemption. "It's a very large loophole that's existed for a long time, and this is the only opportunity we have to close that loophole," she says. She says that the exemption "creates confusion for parents" by implying that the DOE regulations are parallel to or better than the municipal licensing regulations.
But even the crudest comparison of the two sets of regulations proves that the municipal licensing requirements are more stringent than the DOE rules: The DOE regulations are six pages long; the municipal regulations are about 40 pages long.
The municipal regulations spell out certain health and safety standards. For instance, licensed childcare centers are required to keep on file an emergency information card for each child, to obtain three documented references for each employee working with children and to have at least one staff person with CPR training on duty at all times. DOEcertified preschools are not required to have any of these items. Municipal childcare regulations also dictate space requirements (35 square feet per child) and staffing ratios (these vary by age group). The DOE specifications for preschools, however, contain no minimum space requirement and mandate only that the schools have "sufficient staff."
To enforce regulations, the municipality has four fulltime employees who inspect and investigate the 90 or so licensed childcare centers in the Anchorage area. The DOE, by comparison, has only one full-time employee early childhood specialist Kathi Wineman, in Juneau responsible for supervising more than 130 certified preschools around the state.
Obtaining or renewing a DOE preschool certificate is largely a matter of extensive paperwork. Actual onsite visits to preschools generally occur only for investigations of significant complaints, Wineman says. And even then the DOE gives the preschool several days' advance notice of Wineman's visit.
In response to the 12 complaints filed against Green's schools in the past five years, Wineman has made only three onsite visits.
The municipal Department of Health and Human Services has a record of responding to complaints more quickly. Martha Anderson, who oversees licensing of local childcare centers, dispatches her workers to investigate complaints using a timetable that ranges from "immediate" to "within a week," depending on the seriousness of the complaint. And, unlike Wineman, Anderson and her licensing workers make unannounced visits to childcare centers.
Oxley's opinion that the two sets of regulations create "confusion for parents" appears to be borne out by the pattern of complaints filed against Tom Thumb Montessori Schools with the DOE: At least five of the 12 complainants called the local childcare licensing agency Anderson's office and were referred from there to the DOE's Juneau office.
Certainly some complaints don't reach the Department of Education in a timely manner: The 1985 sexual abuse complaint reached the DOE three months after the police were already investigating and nine months to a year after the sexual behavior began.
Anderson reviewed all the complaints against Tom Thumb Montessori Schools and says that they differ from complaints filed against licensed childcare centers.
"We've not had any center in town where we've had recurring serious complaints," Anderson says. "We don't have the same kind of pattern that this teacher "yelled,' this one "pulled and yanked.' It does happen (in licensed childcare centers), but then that teacher gets replaced or retrained, and you don't see it happen anymore."
Samson, who chaired the task force that drafted the proposed childcare ordinance, also reviewed the complaints against Tom Thumb schools as well as complaints against licensed childcare centers. She also says she found a difference, especially in the tone of the complaints.
"I found the tenor of the complaints (against Tom Thumb Montessori Schools) very disturbing and essentially different from the tenor of complaints against (licensed) childcare programs in Anchorage," Samson says. "They were different to the effect that the way the staff (of Tom Thumb) treated children was harsher. . . . There's sort of a broad range of complaints against childcare centers in Anchorage in general, but . . . nobody complained that, for instance, the language used with the children was harsh and inappropriate, where that was the case with the complaints against the Tom Thumb program."
Margaret Green isn't against child care. She isn't against the proposed ordinance and its new regulations, either except for the one clause that would require her and her schools to meet municipal licensing requirements. Though there is nothing in the proposed regulations dictating educational philosophy or content, she says the regulations would force her schools to become merely daycare centers.
"I've never said things against their day cares, because we need day care," Green says. "I'm not against day care. But I'm against them coming in and trying to dictate to our school that we shall be day care when we're not."
Green, a welleducated woman, prides herself on operating an educational program. She earned a master's degree from Teachers CollegeColumbia University in 1944. In 1966, she was certified through the prestigious Saint Nicholas Training Center for the Montessori Method of Education in London. She is currently affiliated with the National Center for Montessori Education, a "progressive" faction separate from the American Montessori Society.
Of the 320 children currently enrolled in her five schools, Green estimates that about 170 children are fullday preschoolers the group that would be affected by the proposed ordinance. About six months ago, Green began organizing a lobbying effort to fight the proposed ordinance, sending parents a packet including a petition form and a list of assembly members' names and phone numbers. She asked the parents to gather 10 signatures on the petition and telephone every assembly member. She also asked parents to testify before the Health and Human Services Commission and to send letters to commission members. Some parents organized a Tom Thumb Committee for Parents' Rights and began holding weekly meetings.
In her letter to parents, Green emphasized that the proposed ordinance would increase tuition costs. For her fullday programs, Green charges $330 a month, or about $40 less than the average rate for licensed child care in Anchorage.
The parents responded to Green's request by writing some 150 letters, gathering more than 1,000 signatures on her petition and filling an auditorium for the Nov. 27 Health and Human Services Commission public hearing.
Green also persuaded five state senators and three state representatives to write letters to the commission on her behalf.
When Mayor Tom Fink presented the proposed ordinance to the assembly Feb. 13, his cover memo indicated that he supports the ordinance with the exception of two regulations: a regulation that would ban childcare centers from using corporal punishment and the clause that would require fullday preschools to meet municipal regulations.
That same night, assembly member John Wood requested the drafting of an alternate ordinance that would make municipal licensing optional for all childcare centers.
Green is encouraged by this outpouring of support. "I'm very optimistic about the (public) hearing. I think our parents have stood behind us before," she says. "I just feel that things will continue status quo. I have that feeling. We shall see."
A 15member task force composed mainly of parents worked since February 1989 to revise existing childcare regulations. As they worked, they periodically mailed drafts of the revision to local childcare providers and held public forums to hear those providers' opinions.
In the process, the task force backed down on several issues. A move to set maximum group sizes for children was deleted, as was a suggestion to lower the childtoilet ratio. And a regulation that would have increased space requirements to 50 square feet per child was quickly drummed out of the document by childcare center owners.
But on this issue of requiring fullday preschools to meet municipal regulatory standards, the task force refused to back down.
"We did know there would be opposition," says task force member Mia Oxley. "Every time childcare regulations are rewritten in any state, there are lots of opinions. And unfortunately, the competing forces are almost always between what we know is best for children and what we can afford."
Margaret Green, however, sees this controversy as a philosophical and financial battle. If she doesn't win, she says, she may close her schools.
Paying "a number" of her teachers $2,000 a month, plus insurance and property taxes that amount to some $40,000, makes it impossible to hire enough teachers to meet the 110 ratio the regulations would require, she says. "In order to pay teachers on a 110 ratio, we would have to raise tuition way up," Green says. "And I don't think parents in these hard times, I don't think a lot of them could afford more than the $330 a month.
"If this goes through, I am not going to run a day care, and that's for a certainty," she says. "I've always had a school, and that's how I'm going to finish up my career running a school."
Record Number: 165536
Copyright (c) 1990, Anchorage Daily News