I am a parent of children 7 and 4 who have attended Our Neighborhood Child Development Center since they were 10 months and 6 weeks of age, respectively. My 7-year-old attended Our Neighborhood in lieu of kindergarten and returns to the school for a month over summer now that she has transitioned to public school. Prior to becoming a parent, I was a Certified CLASS® Observer at the Infant, Toddler, and Pre-K levels. I worked as an expert in the Classroom Assessment Scoring System® for 10 years and have watched and scored hundreds of hours of footage of child care settings of all styles and levels of quality from around the country. I chose Our Neighborhood because I saw that the quality of care they were offering was something truly special. These educators are well represented in these public comments, and that is appropriate, as they are leaders in this field. Their comments should be given considerable weight, and I am mostly here to underscore the points they have already made.

It is the stated goal of these regulations to ensure "that activities, services, and facilities of centers are conducive to the well-being of children." Some of the proposed regulations either directly threaten children's well-being (e.g., increasing teacher ratios, allowing children under 2 to be placed in front of screens, monitoring school-aged children with the intensity of infants) or indirectly threaten children's well-being by increasing the reporting burden and stress on educators and centers that is making high-quality care more and more difficult (and expensive) to provide (and procure). Please lean on bodies like NAEYC, the science of child development, and the voices of educators as you determine what would be conducive to the well-being of children.