Department of Early Learning (DEL) staff work every day to help ensure that licensed child care settings around the state are safe, healthy places for children and that parents have access to good, affordable child care in their communities.
As a state agency, we are here to serve Washington residents. There are times when an individual or child care business disagrees with certain actions taken by DEL, and they have a legal right to appeal DEL’s action. When that occurs, there are hearing and appeal rules in place to guide the appeal process.
This section will help answer questions about how to ask for a hearing to appeal a DEL decision. The information throughout this section applies to three scenarios:
- DEL takes formal action on a licensed child care provider for not following licensing standards.
- A child care worker is disqualified from offering care in a licensed setting, or anyone associated with a licensed child care facility is disqualified from having unsupervised access to children, through a DEL-conducted background check.
- A parent is found to be ineligible for seasonal child care subsidies to help pay for child care, the amount a parent is eligible to receive changes, or a parent or child care provider has been assessed an overpayment. An overpayment is when the parent or provider gets more subsidy money than they are eligible to receive.
Before DEL takes formal action, DEL can work to address concerns.
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There are laws in place to protect the right to appeal certain DEL decisions.
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After a hearing judge hands down an initial decision, any party may request a review by the DEL review judge.
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Who are the hearing judges and the DEL review judge, and what are their relationships with the department?
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