Child-Care related policy Memo
Introduction
The currently ongoing global pandemic related to the COVID-19 has exposed to the world and various institutions the need for hygiene, especially when it comes to ensuring the safety and health of both staff and children in preschool or early childhood care. Just as much as it has never come to the attention of the world the need for more hygiene related policy, so has it never occurred to the world the need to tighten the existing systems and laws to ensure the safety and health of our children in the preschool or early child-care related policy. The knowledge of these grave issues relating to the health and safety of preschool children and teachers is fundamental. This memorandum seeks to support proposed policy changes in the various laws and policies related to early child-care in the US. This memorandum aims to ensure that the proposed changes support the improvement and enhancement of health and safety procedures to keep both staff and children in preschool care institutions safe and healthy. Since the US and the entire world cannot run away from the fact that the virus is here and it is deadly, this memorandum supports policy changes that will target enhancing health and safety procedures in preschool care facilities for future generations. The current pandemic is a wake-up call to the entire world also to consider policy changes that will protect the staff and children I such institutions. In particular, this memorandum will focus on health policy changes, educational policy changes and safety and health policy changes related to prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic, and address how these policies will meet health and safety standards for preschool staff and children.
Among these policies include the recent action by the US president of declaring the pandemic outbreak a national emergency. How ill the declaration of the COVID -19 pandemic as a national emergency policy enhances the health and safety procedures for both students and teachers in preschool child-care institutions? Equivalently, how will recent changes in health and educational policies and programs, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, address the improvement of health and safety procedures for both staff and students in preschool child-care institutions? In essence, this memorandum seeks to discuss how the recent changes in laws, policies, and procedures will protect children and staff from the currently spreading virus and future risks.
Declaration of the COVID-19 outbreak a national emergency
On Friday 13th March 2020, The US president took the unpredicted policy measure of declaring the COVID-19 epidemic a national emergency. The move was meant to ensure the COVID-19 outbreak does not impact not only public life but also life in schools and institutions such as child-care institutions. This memorandum seeks to support the move by the US president to trigger the national policy Act of declaring the pandemic a national emergency. The change will protect not only the public but also the children in preschool child-care institutions by creating awareness on the need for maintenance of health standards and social distancing to mitigate the spread of the virus. Preschool children in child care institutions are at the most significant risk of exposure to the disease due to a lack of knowledge, primarily due to their tender age (Tanne, 2020). The policy change by the president of declaring the spread of the virus as a national emergency will impact the enhancement of health and safety procedures among staff and children in preschool institutions. One way is by compelling institutions to close their schools for the time being to protect both children and staff in such insertions.
However, the policy move by the president will only impact the current situation related to the protection of the health and safety standards of students. However, additional policy and program changes are needed to ensure that the welfare of the children and staff in preschool child-care does not stop when the pandemic ends, but continues to protect them into the future (Siegel et al., 2020). Since the president will hopefully lift the state of emergency soon, policy, law, and program changes within child-care in preschools should effective to ensure the protection of the lives and health of students and staff against the disease and other health-related diseases do not stop at the end of the pandemic. Therefore, this memorandum also seeks to review and support new educational and health policies, programs, and laws changes that enhance the health and safety of staff and children in preschool child-care institutions.
Educational policy change
The field of education is one of the areas that has received the most significant impact of the COVID-19 outbreak and pandemic. Millions of students all over the world have either had to abandon their term studies midway or adopt to policy and law changes that seek to apprehend the virus spread. Recent policy changes in the US educational sector have therefore, not only targeted the spread of the disease, but also the protection of the students of staff in educational institutions. The preschool child-care institutions have also felt the impact of the recent changes in educational policies as they belong in the elementary school category. This memorandum supports some of the recent changes in educational policy because of the role it plays in ensuring the protection and enhancement of health and safety standards of teachers and students in preschool child-care facilities, especially from the spread of COVID-19.
The FY2019 State Grant Under Title I-A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (EASA), is a policy change dated 11th March 2020 and is the most recently amended act. The policy was comprehensively amended by the Every Student Success Act (ESSA: PL, 114-95) as the primary source of federal aid to K-12 education. The Title I-A Program by the act market the largest ever grant under the ESEA amounting to $ 15.9 Billion aimed at [providing supplementary educational related services such as safety and health standards. The reason why the policy change was enacted following the spread of COVID-19 is that it aimed at helping children and students from low-income families deal with the health and safety procedural issues related to the virus. This memorandum supports the policy change because it marked the beginning of consideration for the health and safety standards as well as other low-achieving related issues among secondary school as well elementary school children, who include preschool children. The funding from the federal government due to the policy will serve the purpose of helping in the protection of health and safety standards for children in preschool and from low-income areas. It will also look into how the future of such institutions will be built from lessons learned during the pandemic. This memorandum, therefore, supports the policy because it assures the future of American students of all academic levels, whether secondary or elementary and even preschool of improved health and safety standards.
Another recent educational policy that will impact the future and current state of health and safety procedures in preschool child-care institutions is the Title I-A Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). However, the purpose of this policy is to support the main educational policy change discussed in the paragraph above. The new policy aims to compel the federal government to provide aid to elementary and secondary schools. The relationship between the policy and the provision of health and safety measures in preschool child-care institutions lies in the fact that the policy compels the federal government to provide aid of any kind to all types of institutions, including preschool institutions. This memorandum supports the change in policy because it will ensure that the federal government provides fiscal support to mitigate the COVID-19 crisis and to ensure that the health and safety of children and teachers in such institutions is a top priority.
Additionally, this memorandum supports the policy change because it will ensure that the future of health and safety standards of the students and staff in preschool institutions is a top priority for the federal government. The federal government will ensure that it provides aid and support for health crisis issues as well as aid for the maintenance of safety standards in preschools. Currently, the policy change will ensure that the federal government provides monetary assistance towards the improvement of health and safety standards in preschools, aimed at mitigating the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in preschools.
However, it is essential to note that the future of education, as a form of social interaction, is in the hands of the policies, laws, and program changes that the current generation of preschool staff and responsible stakeholders will adopt. The reality is that the COVID-19 virus will not go away, and the prevention of future outbreaks depends on the policies that both the educational and health sector put in place today. Therefore, it is also essential for this memorandum to review and support some a change in health policy that will impact the enhancement of health and safety of staff and students in preschool institutions.
Health policy change
The health sector has undisputedly faced the most significant impact of the COVID-19 global pandemic. The state of public health in developed countries that have always received acknowledgment has come under scrutiny in recent times, and even the best systems have felt the impact of the challenge. The global health community is also closely monitoring the reaction of different countries towards the worldwide pandemic, and the results show that the world currently faces a significant litmus test that will determine the future of global pandemic preparedness. The health sector has received a significant blow, and the death numbers show just how much the COVID -19 pandemic is impacting the health sectors of different countries. The United States has been at the forefront of ensuring that changes in health policies and laws aimed at mitigating the risks at all levels, including educational standards. Although the impact of the pandemic is not as adverse on children as it affects adults, especially the elderly, new federal government policies and program changes are not taking chances due to the canning and self-adaptive nature of the virus. Therefore, this memorandum supports some for the recent changes in policies, systems, and processes aimed at mitigating the COVID-19 outbreak because they also enhance the health and safety procedures aimed at protecting staff and children in preschool facilities.
One of the most significant changes in health policy following the COVID-19 outbreak is the Federal Research and Development (R&D) Funding, FY. 2020 policy. The policy is the most recently changed policy related to the COVID-19 outbreak. The federal policy seeks to direct all FY. 2019 appropriation bills that had not been enacted towards the raising of $ 134.1 Billion towards dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak (IUI, 2020). This memorandum supports the policy change because it aims at ensuring that enough p=funds are directed towards the research and development of a vaccine and cure for the COVID-19 virus that will impact both staff and children in preschool child-care institutions. The development of a vaccine is the only sure way of helping children in preschool institutions mitigate the future spread of the COVID-19 since it is much more challenging to ensure that preschool children maintain high hygiene standards. A vaccine is also the only sure way that the interaction between preschool children and staff involved in their care can prevent the spread of the virus in schools. Therefore, this memorandum finds the policy change as a very significant step towards enhancing health and safety procedures in preschool child-care institutions.
Conclusion
However, stakeholders in the sector of child-care in preschools should not just rely on changes in policy, programs, and laws as the only way of ensuring the enhancement of health policies and safety among staff and children in such institutions. The stakeholders should also formulate internal policy changes. And system diagnostics that will ensure the adaptation to the new health standards that the COVID-19 will compel the world to set. The COVID-19 has exposed to ever country in the world. The weaknesses in their health systems and stakeholders in child-care preschool education should come up with internal measures that support the current systems. At the same time, the COVID-19 will leave behind a wave of new realities, new health standards, and a more hygienic world aware of the grave consequences of laxity in the health sector. The virus will also leave behind new standards in disaster preparedness and management (Paules, Marston & Fauci, 2020). The preschool child-care sector has to ensure that the changes in policies, laws, and procedures do not leave behind these venerable members of society when building a world of new health and safety standards. The safety and health of this new generation are most important since they are the future of the world we want and the fulfillment of a corona free society that we now dare to dream. This memorandum has, therefore, provided support, with reasons, for some of the best policy and program changes that will impact both staff and children in the preschool child-care sector. The policies that this memorandum has supported will go a long way in ensuring the safety and health security of both children and staff in the child-care education sector.
References
Benefit, I. U. I. (2020) Possible Fiscal Policies for Rare, Unanticipated, and Severe Viral Outbreaks.
Paules C, Marston H, Fauci A. Coronavirus Infections – More Than Just the Common Cold pdf icon[2 pages]. JAMA. Published online 23rd January 2020. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.0757
Siegel, R., Carlson, T., Hallowell, B., & Marshall, (2020) L. FULL COVERAGE: CORONAVIRUSNOW. COM.
Tanne, J. H. (2020). Covid-19: Trump proposes tax cuts and improved health insurance, but millions are not covered.