Virtual day care: Virtual Child Care Center Tour

Virtual daycare gives teleworking parents creative options – Video

A new YouTube series gives families access to digital daycare opportunities for their military kids.

School closings and mandated stay-at-home orders have put online education resources for kids in high demand. The Fab Lab with Crazy Aunt Lindsey developed an innovative solution that educates, engages and entertains students virtually through its new Digital Daycare™.

Between the hours of 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. PST, families can participate in livestream learning with Lindsey Murphy, creator of The Fab Lab. This supplementary educational programming is ideal for children k-5.

Air Force spouse Bianca Reed, a mother of three, has been streaming the Digital Daycare™ for her school-aged children.

“I think when you hear ‘digital daycare’ you’re like, ‘how is this happening? How are you making this work?’ I was real impressed with the educational content. It’s resonating with a wide range — not just one age group,” she said.

Reed isn’t new to Crazy Aunt Lindsey. As the head of client development and marketing with Rain the Growth Agency, she’s worked closely with Murphy. She’s also been a subscriber to Murphy’s popular YouTube channel for about three years. As a mother, Reed is conscious about the role models she puts in front of her kids.

“There’s not a lot of diversity in STEM, so we’re always looking for ways to engage our children there,” she explained.

Michelle Cardinal, co-founder and CEO of Rain the Growth Agency, is proud to be a sponsor for this project. Murphy is the Artist in Residence at the advertising agency. Being located in the Pacific Northwest, Cardinal’s company is always in disaster planning mode. While they were able to quickly deploy technology to allow their 240 employees to work remotely, she never considered what it would mean for parents being stuck at home working with their children. They needed a solution that would support parents on a day-to-day basis.

“A few weeks ago, she (Murphy) and I got on the phone and talked about the need that we were having in our company. She came up with the idea of Digital Daycare™,” Cardinal said.

The idea was green lighted and Murphy had it all ready to go within three days.

Here are some of the activities that will be covered during The Fab Lab with Crazy Aunt Lindsey:

• Easy DIY STEM projects,
• American Sign Language,
• Kids fitness,
• Yoga,
• Snack ideas, and
• Storytime.

And there are a few ingredients that set The Fab Lab apart from other online educational programs too.

Reed says, “The kids aren’t getting bored because she’s constantly changing content. I also feel as though she’s an educator. Sometimes you have an entertainment factor that outweighs the education. She does a good job of balancing both.”

Murphy also has guest appearances from professionals who talk about their careers from companies like Microsoft and Nike. Reed’s husband, newly-promoted Master Sgt. Reed, will soon be on to teach kids how to perform military emergency CPR.

For families who can’t catch the program during its livestream hours, there is another alternative. Each Digital Daycare™ episode is uploaded to the Fab Lab’s YouTube page. Viewers can also enjoy previous content like Murphy’s DIY science projects that were featured in a summer series on Portland Today news.

Parents can look forward to having added help in the home when their kids are with Crazy Aunt Lindsey. Although the activities are designed to be done with the whole family to encourage bonding, adult interaction is not always necessary. Most projects are safe and easy.

“She does science that’s safe for kids to engage on their own and parents can supervise,” Reed said. “My four-year-old can participate in about 60% of it without adult help.”

For parents, like Reed, who are working remotely from home this is a significant help.

Access Crazy Aunt Lindsey’s Digital Daycare at https://www. facebook.com/TheFabLabHQ.

Tags: COVID-19digital daycaremilitary familiesMilitary KidsSTEMThe Fab Lab with Crazy Aunt Lindseyworking parents

Are Virtual Day Camps and Daycare Eligible Under a Dependent Care FSA?

In the era of COVID, many parents find themselves working from home with children afoot because schools and daycare providers are closed. Many, if not most, schools are operating remotely in a virtual-learning environment. While virtual learning is less optimal than in-person learning, it does provide important structure for students. Importantly, virtual learning often also provides needed structure for parents who are balancing some measure of homeschooling while simultaneously needing to meet the demands of full-time work.

Enter a host of new virtual daycare opportunities and virtual camp experiences for children. This typically comes into play for elementary school age children whose parents engage virtual daycare or day camps for their children so that they can focus on work. With the advent of virtual daycare, camps, and classes, there has been an onslaught of claims for these services under Dependent Care FSA plans. With that, the issue of eligibility must be addressed.

IRS Requirements

Dependent care expenses must meet specific criteria in order to be considered eligible. Care must be provided for a qualifying individual (generally a child under the age of 13) and it must be incurred such that the employee (and the employee’s spouse) can be gainfully employed. These underlying requirements are clear and are not at issue in this discussion. There are three additional criteria which relate to the nature of the care provided that are relevant here:

1. Primarily Custodial in Nature: This requirement clarifies the ineligibility of any expenses which are primarily educational in nature. This exclusion of directly educational expenses as well as those which may have an element of care, but which remain primarily educational (such as tutoring or music lessons) has been a long-standing and clear requirement in the IRS regulations.
2. Ensure “Well-Being and Protection”: The IRS guidance is clear that the primary function of the care must be to ensure well-being and protection of the child. In the context of virtual care, it is important to understand the primary vs. secondary nature of the purpose of the care.
3. Other Benefits Must be Incidental to and Inseparably Part of Care: The IRS recognizes that in the regular provision of dependent care, some other benefits may inure to the child or the family. For example, a babysitter may provide some educational function by reading to a child. A daycare program may provide lunch for a child. Or an afterschool program may provide some instructional services. However, each of these “extra” benefits are considered incidental to and not the primary purpose of the care.

An Example of Reality

Let’s take the example of a parent working at home and who has enrolled their elementary age child in a virtual day camp experience. It is clear that the existence of the virtual day camp experience will allow the parent to better focus on working. It can also be assumed that someone else is watching over the child’s immediate activities and, presumably, would alert the parent if there are any problems.

The Argument FOR Virtual Daycare Eligibility

It could be argued that this scenario meets the criteria set out for dependent care eligibility and that the primary purpose could be deemed as ensuring the child’s well-being and protection. Proponents of this viewpoint argue that the vigilance provided by an in-person provider is not significantly different than when such a service is provided via a video connection with two-way audio and visual functionality. The basic argument here is that the nature of the oversight of the child is not changed by the virtual nature of the interaction.

The Argument AGAINST Virtual Daycare Eligibility

The more conservative argument would acknowledge that a virtual care could not ever be considered primarily custodial in nature nor for the primary purpose of the well-being and protection of the child since the very nature of custody and protection implies physical presence. Virtual providers might be able to keep the child engaged and occupied for the convenience of the parent, but it is difficult to make the argument that they would be able to protect and ensure the well-being of the child beyond maintaining web-based vigilance. While a virtual provider might be able to alert a parent if the child is in danger, it is still the parent who must act to protect the child. This calls into play the third test of the inseparability of “other benefits” (in this case the benefit of keeping the child otherwise engaged). In effect, the parent is still the primary provider of well-being and protection, and the parent retains the responsibility of primary custody of the child.

What are FSA Administrators Doing?

To say there is a lack of consistency on how FSA administrators are addressing these claims is an understatement. Many administrators are taking the more lax interpretation given the unusual circumstances of COVID. Most proffer an admittedly weak argument for eligibility with a strong argument for reason in the face of COVID realities for parents. In further support of this opinion, these administrators are relying on participants “attesting” that the expense meets all of the IRS criteria for eligibility. To this, we would suggest that it is the administrator’s job to affirm eligibility of reimbursements and to keep the plan compliant.

We Agree, It Should be Eligible

We agree that, in the face of COVID realities, virtual daycare expenses SHOULD be considered eligible under dependent care FSA plans. It is reasonable. It is logical. These services really do help parents focus on work. The fact is that current IRS guidance does not properly contemplate the realities faced by parents working from home while schools are closed with elementary age children needing to log on to the internet for class. The regulations were written at time when Zoom didn’t exist and when virtual services of all kinds (daycare and otherwise) would have been seen as a Jetson’s era reality. In short, the regulations we have simply don’t recognize the reality we are living in.

But It’s Not

That said, the fact is that according to the IRS guidelines that we currently have, virtual dependent care expenses simply don’t meet the standards that are outlined for eligibility. Wishing it otherwise, doesn’t change the fact. While we can hope that the IRS will offer some updated guidance on this issue, they have yet to do so. As unpopular as it is, without explicit guidance from the IRS, we believe it is better to err on the side of caution and consider virtual daycare and virtual day camps as ineligible expenses.

Virtual Kindergarten “Mishutka” Yaroslavl

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The site is designed and operates as a source of informative, visual and educational information aimed at helping everyone who has children of preschool age….

Welcome to the virtual Kindergarten “Mishutka”

The site is designed and functions as a source of cognitive, visual and educational information aimed at helping everyone who has children of preschool age.

A simple and visual navigation menu will provide you with free movement through the sections and pages of the site.
The site is designed for a wide audience of visitors.
The main thing is to provide real, effective and timely assistance to the parent community and teachers.

For parents

Dear parents, grandparents!

Being at home with a child for a long time, it is extremely necessary to maintain a daily routine, maintain the child’s cognitive interest and follow certain rules.

The virtual kindergarten “Mishutka” will help you with this.
Here you are:

• You have the opportunity to see what activities are held in the group, including summaries of these activities in various areas (cognitive, artistic and aesthetic, social and communicative, speech, physical.) in the section “Educational activities”;
• You have access to the daily routine and schedule of the group that his child attends (by age) in the “Daily schedule” section;
• You receive psychological and pedagogical support and targeted assistance in the upbringing of your preschool children through the personal pages of specialists – a speech therapist teacher, music director, educational psychologist, physical education instructor;
• You can ask a question directly to an employee of the kindergarten, leave your comments, remarks and wishes on the organization of work in section “Feedback”.

A media library is available to you, all the resources of which can be arranged by age and by the order of development.

This way your child is not left behind. He spends time interestingly, with benefit, masters the program, develops!

For teachers of the educational organization

Dear teachers!
Virtual Kindergarten:

• Expands for you the opportunity to provide various categories of families with timely multidisciplinary assistance, psychological and pedagogical support and support;
• Increases your information culture and allows you to introduce ICT into the educational space of preschool educational institutions;
• Is a platform for the use of ICT for remote communication, dissemination of professional experience.

You can both post teaching materials and enjoy an effective teaching experience.

Thus, a virtual kindergarten for you is an information and educational environment for methodological support, a way to help organize educational work in accordance with the Federal State Educational Standard for Preschool Education.

For the administration of a preschool educational organization

Dear leaders!
Virtual kindergarten will allow you to:

• Along with the traditional forms of organizing effective interaction between the family and preschool educational institutions, apply innovative interactive forms based on the use of ICT technologies;
• Encourage teachers to actively use ICT in preschool educational institutions, which will ensure a continuous process of improving professional skills, the competence of each educator and specialist;
• Organize a “virtual reception” by receiving questions, comments, suggestions on the organization of work from the parent community and teachers through section “Feedback”.

Thus, your kindergarten is a modern educational organization that keeps pace with the modern information society.

Feedback

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Your e-mail: (required)

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