Reply to New MoCo Executive Order Coming Thursday covering child care, alcohol sales, escape rooms, etc.

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Any intel on why the child care center numbers? Is that a reduction? Was it up to full capacity?[/quote]

So, the county got caught in a lie.

The Maryland State Department of Education regulates child care. Until early October, MSDE limited child care centers to 15 people in a room. But in October they removed that restriction, allowing child care centers to go back to full capacity.

Shortly thereafter, Montgomery County announced that they would be sticking to the 15 person limit. However, there was nothing in any executive or health order that gave that the force of law. Hence this new executive order.[/quote]

But why reduce to 50 percent?? This makes no sense.[/quote]

I've been trying to understand this today.

Capacity is driven primarily by two factors: 1) child-to-provider ratio and 2) area in the classroom.

The earlier MSDE guidance set a 1:14 ratio for ages 3+, with a limit of 15 people per room. The 3-4 age group ordinarily has a 20-child maximum group size under Maryland regulations, so this COVID restriction was informally considered operating at 75% capacity when speaking with the press.  The even earlier restriction from MSDE, which was in-place between March and July, limited things to 10 people per room, and was described as roughly 50% capacity.

I think this new executive order was written by someone that read the earlier news reports, but didn't understand the actual rules.

Now, separately, Maryland regulations require 35 square feet of usable floor space per child in a daycare classroom (meaning, it doesn't include bathrooms, storage rooms, adult workspaces and food preparation areas, hallways, fixed furniture, and sleeping areas).  My guess is that most rooms exceed that amount, but I doubt it is anywhere near double, particularly when you remove the space that isn't supposed to be counted.

Honestly, I don't the County Executive and DHHS have been very thoughtful when writing the past executive orders, so I mostly attribute this order to laziness on their part.  I doubt it was intentional.[/quote]

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