Collection of Required Enrollment Information by Child Care Centers and Day Care Homes

Effective April 1, 2005, state agencies must comply with new regulatory requirements pertaining to enrollment forms for children in child care centers (except for emergency shelters, at-risk after-school snack programs, and outside-school-hours care centers) and day care homes participating in the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). As of April 1, 2005, the enrollment form for each child in care must:

1. Be updated annually,
2. Be signed by the child’s parent or legal guardian, and
3. Include information on the child’s normal days and hours of care, as well as the normal meals received in care.

This memorandum concerns an option we are providing to state agencies to comply with the third requirement, relating to whether the normal hours of care and meals received while in care are included on the annual enrollment form. We have been informed that state licensing agencies in a number of states require parents to sign their children in and out of child care facilities each day.

We have determined that this satisfies the requirement to collect the normal days and hours in care on each child’s enrollment form, provided that:

• The sign-in sheet captures the time the children arrive at and depart from the child care facility; and
• Each day, the sign-in and sign-out times are signed or initialed by a parent or guardian.

This option is available to all state agencies, whether the requirement for sign-in sheets is imposed by the CACFP state agency or by another appropriate state authority, such as the state licensing agency. In those states in which there is a sign-in sheet requirement,

State agencies may choose to accept the sign-in sheets in lieu of capturing hours of care and meals received on the annual enrollment forms for:

• All facilities covered by the sign-in sheet requirements;
• Some of the facilities (for example, centers but not homes) covered by the sign-in sheet requirements; or
• None of the facilities in the state.

However, state agencies must still ensure that all facilities meet the requirement for maintaining a current enrollment form for each child in care that is annually updated and signed by the child’s parent or legal guardian.

We hope that providing state agencies with this option will facilitate the implementation of the five-day reconciliation requirements in a way that is most effective in each state. Please let us know if there are any questions concerning this guidance.

STANLEY C. GARNETT
Director
Child Nutrition Division