The Department of Children and Families (DCF) is addressing a pandemic-triggered need for child care for school-age children when schools are not having in-person classes.
Traditionally, Wisconsin Shares for school-aged children provides payment for services before or after the school day but not during the school day. But for the 2020-21 school year, The Department of Children and Families informed providers in a memo that, “parents can receive child care authorizations during the day when school is delivered virtually and child care is needed for parents to participate in their approved activity.”
Formerly, the DCF memo said, the Wisconsin Shares Child Care program did not allow authorizations for time during the typical school day for children in grades K-12 while the school year is in session.
But now, because of the pandemic, the DCF memo says, “The policy remains the same; however, the ‘typical school day’ is defined as the time that the child receives in-person instruction from a teacher employed by the school district located at the school or other socially distanced school locations. This policy currently only applies to the 2020-2021 school year.”
However, the time when a child receives virtual/analog instruction outside of the school location is not considered to be part of the “typical school day,” the memo explains.
