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KY3 News creates exclusive interactive tool to see childcare inspectionsby Cara Restelli, KY3 News
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SPRINGFIELD -- KY3 News created an exclusive interactive tool for parents looking for a good childcare facility. There's been nothing like it in Missouri until now. Nursing homes inspections, restaurant inspections, and school district performance results are all online. But for childcare facility inspections in Missouri, no online database was available. After hearing complaint after complaint from young parents wondering how they can find out more about the people who are helping to raise their kids, we decided there has to be a better way.
Working parents know leaving your child in someone else's care is hard enough without having to worry about their safety while with that person. It's a concern that Kissee Mills Head Start director Kathy Brown hopes her students' parents don't have to experience.
“I have a staff that knows what needs to be done to keep our center safe and healthy,” she said.
It's a good thing, since inspectors with the Missouri Section for Child Care Regulation are constantly checking up on childcare centers. They inspect licensed homes and facilities at least twice a year.
“We inspect the entire facility, looking for physical hazards, child/staff ratios, and that supervision is correct,” said Andrea Letzinger, director of the Southwest District of the Section for Child Care Regulation.
Plus, health inspectors come by at least once a year checking for sanitation violations. And the fire marshal's investigators check for fire code violations. And that's the minimum.
“If we find serious non-compliances, we will come back a lot more frequently,” said Letzinger.
The information in these inspection reports is critical for parents to have but most don't get it.
“I called them to look at them but you have to go from this time to this time and it didn't work with my work schedule,” said Racquel Rosenthal, mother of 14-month-old Trenton.
Because she couldn't make it to the downtown Springfield office to view the files, Rosenthal had to choose her son's childcare facility on a hunch alone. And, less than one week after he started, a breast milk mix-up made her realize how important those inspections are.
“She went to get some for another baby and accidentally grabbed Trenton's and fed it to the other child,” she said.
Rosenthal doubts any mother who sees her complaint, which was substantiated by inspectors, would send her child to the childcare center. She wonders, however, how many other parents, like her, don't have access to the public information.
“I wouldn't have even met with them or thought twice about them,” she said.
Letzinger said in August 2008 that inspection results would be available online within a year but there's still no sign of it happening.
“I don't know what happened. We had a change in administration and the process got delayed,” said Letzinger.
That leaves parents without a good way to tell the difference between good childcare facilities like the one in Kissee Mills, which has had no violations since the beginning of 2008, and facilities placed on probation after allegations of child abuse.
So we decided to stop waiting for the state to give parents easier access to inspection reports. After three months of scanning nearly 3,500 inspections and entering that information for nearly 400 homes and facilities, we took a look at the safety records of childcare facilities across southwest Missouri. We found facilities averaged six compliance violations per inspections, an average of five sanitation violations and about two fire code violations. Inspectors found substantiated complaints at 30 facilities, ranging from children being left alone on the playground to staff members biting a toddler who got into trouble. And, sadly, the parents of children still attending those facilities may not know it, just as parents of Kissee Mills Head Start may not realize just how good they have it. Rosenthal just wishes parents had more to rely on than instinct.
“I didn't realize how uncomfortable I was at this place until I found a good daycare," she said.
With the help of the National Institute of Computer Assisted Reporting, and Investigative Reporters and Editors, we created an interactive tool that allows you to view inspection reporters for your child's childcare facility. Just put in the name of the day care or ZIP code for a list of ones in your area. It’s a tool that’s great for parents wanting to check up on their child’s facility or those looking for a new home or facility.
Keep in mind, this is a snapshot of inspections conducted at licensed childcare centers only between the beginning of 2008 and when we finished scanning the reports in July. We will try to continue to update the records but, for now, they don't include any inspections conducted since July and they don't include any license-exempt facilities, which are typically run by churches.
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