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Section 122.7 provides that a facility must undergo an additional fire inspection in certain situations, at their own expense. One commenter sought clarification as to why a facility is required to obtain an additional fire inspection to change the ages of the children to be served at the facility. OSSE appreciates the request for clarification. OSSE intended that a facility should obtain a new fire inspection, and Certificate of Occupancy, if there was an increase in the number of children enrolled under 30 months of age as this would impact a facility’s ability to safely serve the number of children and evacuate in an emergency. Accordingly, to ensure there is not any further misunderstanding, OSSE amended the requirement in both § 122.5(c) and § 122.7(c) by striking “change the age of children” and inserted “increase the number of children under thirty (30) months of age” in its place. A new fire inspection will determine whether the facility will continues to meet all applicable fire safety codes for the new age groups and determine whether all children and staff could be safely evacuated during an emergency.

Another stakeholder commented that § 122.12 could be misinterpreted as requiring windows are covered at all times. To ensure that no such misunderstanding occurs, OSSE has further clarified this in the final rule by amending § 122.12(b) by inserting the phrase “protected with guards that prevent exit by a child.” This amendment maintains the intent of this section in the proposed rulemaking, which was to ensure that children were safe from various harms within a center, such as falling down stairs, strangulation by cords, or falling out a window.

In addition, the State Superintendent deleted § 122.17 in its entirety and renumbered accordingly to clarify the requirements for electric fans because the requirements were already set forth in § 122.15(a) and therefore unnecessarily repetitive.

Section 122.24 requires that smoke detectors are tested monthly. A comment requested that OSSE amend to require testing quarterly as larger centers have external companies that conduct such testing and therefore compliance with monthly testing would be unnecessarily burdensome and costly. OSSE adopted the commenter’s suggestion and replaced monthly with quarterly in § 122.24. This amendment does not alter the intent of this provision, to ensure smoke detectors were examined on a consistent basis and therefore this non-substantive change does not require further request for comment.

The State Superintendent also amended § 122.25, requirements for fire drills, by striking the word “quarterly” and inserting the word “monthly.” This change reflects the current requirement for monthly fire drills as mandated by Section 405, “Emergency Evacuation Drills” of the International Fire Code (IFC 2014). The State Superintendent did not intend to change the monthly requirement but was altered due to a drafting error.

Lavatory Space To clarify the intent of the requirement set forth in § 123.5, the State Superintendent deleted the phrase “within children’s reach” and replaced it with “in a manner accessible for independent use”. In addition, one commenter requested the State Superintendent amended § 123.6 to add “that are not independently using toilet facilities” to clarify that changing tables are only required for children who are not independently using toilet facilities. The State Superintendent agrees