Childcare Centers

Health and safety standards should be applied equally to all childcare providers, regardless of their religious affiliation or lack thereof. All carve outs and loopholes for religiously affiliated childcare providers should be removed to protect children and their families.

Religiously exempt child daycare centers (RECDCs) allow thousands of childcare facilities to operate with little to no regulation. Too often parents assume that their daycare center is properly licensed and meeting the state’s health and safety standards, when it may be the case that the facility is unlicensed or has not ever been inspected. If a state establishes health and safety standards deemed necessary to keep children safe, every child care center should be held to the same standards regardless of its religious affiliation. Twenty-two states hold religiously-affiliated child care centers to a different standard, six of which apply little to no regulation at all. These state include Alabama, Indiana, Missouri, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia, which just changed its policy to include religiously-affiliated child care centers in its mandatory inspections.