Child Care Centers in School Buildings Must Close Immediately, Says OCFS

    Today, the Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) has sent letters to childcare centers that are located in school buildings telling them that they are "no longer eligible providers" and that they "cease operations." 

    Each recipient of the OCFS letter was informed that it has been identified as a “legally-exempt group child care program that is located in a school that has been closed,” as a result of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s latest executive order, which in the state’s red zones, temporarily closed public and private schools, shuttered non-essential businesses, allowed restaurants to take-out only, and reduced houses of worship to 25% occupancy or 10 people maximum.

   The childcare centers in schools are only closed temporarily until red zones can reopen as per Gov. Cuomo’s executive order, wrote Janice M. Molnar, PhD, who signed the letter and who serves as the Deputy Commissioner of the OCFS’s Division of Child Care Services.

  Childcare programs are not being terminated, the letter said, but they are temporarily losing their OCSF status as legally-exempt child care providers and are considered to be “inactive” until “enhanced public health restrictions based on cluster-based cases of COVID -19” are no longer necessary."

  The restrictions are in place, Dr. Molnar says, to help the state contain the coronavirus and to prevent its spread.

photo credit: Tomash Devenishek/Flickr (Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic)