Day cares fall short of safety standards

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State officials defended the decision to keep the scores from the public, saying they were for internal purposes only and helped DECAL determine which day cares need more attention. But the AJC’s analysis of the data, obtained through an Open Records Act request, revealed hundreds of day cares that have repeatedly fallen short.

“That’s a major, major problem,” said Yale School of Medicine professor Walter Gilliam, director of Yale’s Edward Zigler Center in Child Development & Social Policy. “Programs that fail child care regulations are generally unsafe places for children to be. It’s not simply that these programs aren’t going to be places where children can learn and grow and develop. It’s worse than that. These are the programs that should never have been opened in the first place.”

In response to the AJC’s reporting, DECAL said Friday that it would create a process to identify and track day cares that have repeatedly failed to meet the state’s standards.

In an earlier interview, DECAL Commissioner Bobby Cagle first downplayed some of the AJC’s findings, saying the programs that had been noncompliant for three or four consecutive years only represented a small fraction of all programs statewide.

But, he said, “one noncompliant program in one year is too many. We need to be working toward less noncompliant programs.”

When asked why the compliance scores haven’t been made public, Cagle said: “Because that information was never intended for that purpose. That information was intended for the purpose of internal monitoring only.”

Tra-Vondrea Olds, an Austell mother of two young sons in day care, doesn’t understand the state’s logic.

“It doesn’t make sense,” said Olds, 25, whose sons were once in a Cobb day care that has posted failing scores for four straight years. “Why wouldn’t they provide them?”

If Olds knew the scores, “I wouldn’t send my child to a day care that had a bad score,” she said.

Cagle added that DECAL is working on a new scoring system that will be eventually be provided to the public, perhaps in 2013. However, that system is voluntary.

Gilliam, whose research focuses on child care services, said the state should share this information with the public.

“They’re obviously collecting data, but they’re not making it available to the other important stakeholder in this, which is the parents,” Gilliam said.

However, local child care advocate Pat Willis said she didn’t object to DECAL not giving the public access to that information, largely because parents can view individual inspection reports online.

1 program, 191 violations

Of the 29 day care programs found to be noncompliant for four straight years, five have an even less desirable distinction: They received the worst possible scores each year. At least three are still open.

One of those is Yes I Can Learning Academy at 1722 Oak St. in Marietta.

In the past three years, Yes I Can has amassed 191 violations, a startling number even compared to programs that are repeatedly noncompliant. The center recorded 52 violations in 2011, 71 in 2010 and 68 in 2009, according to state data obtained by the AJC.

When reached by phone recently, center owner Kathy Bradham denied that her program had been noncompliant for the past four years. “I’m in compliance,” she said. “If you read my records, it’ll show you that I’m in compliance.”

Asked whether she was confusing compliance with having a license to operate, Bradham hung up on an AJC reporter.

A review of Yes I Can’s state file shows that the center has repeatedly been cited for such issues as not giving children enough food, inappropriately disciplining them and failing to keep the building and playground clean and free of hazards. In one bizarre incident, Bradham released the wrong child to the blind grandfather of another child.

In response to that incident, Bradham’s center took a unique approach to making sure it never happens again. “In the future, Yes I Can Learning Academy will not release any children to blind people,” Melvin M. Goldstein, Bradham’s attorney at the time, wrote to DECAL.

The records also show that Bradham has obstructed state inspectors from doing their jobs on several occasions.

Once, in 2008, she refused to let a state inspector interview two children in connection with an investigation. The next year, when an inspector wanted to discuss a plan to improve the center’s quality, the child care provider refused. After one inspection, an inspector called Bradham’s center four times to discuss the findings, documents show.

“The calls were never returned,” according to the file.

Asked by email about the state’s oversight of Yes I Can, Cagle said, “I have reviewed the violations for this center and I am very concerned.

“Their previous record of noncompliance is unacceptable and although their last monitoring visit showed evidence of dramatic improvement, we want the center to be in full compliance. This will be addressed with the facility immediately.”

Officials at Yes I Can and other programs reacted aggressively when an AJC reporter tried to interview parents after they dropped off their children.

On a recent morning at Yes I Can, a woman rushed out of the day care and told a parent not to talk to an AJC reporter. The parent sheepishly complied.

At the Love & Care Center in northwest Atlanta, another program that has failed to meet state standards four years in a row, employees reacted even more strongly. They called 911, even though the reporter had already identified himself to the center’s manager. A police officer showed up within minutes but left after speaking to the reporter and checking his identification.

Where Yes I Can totaled 191 violations during the past three years, Love & Care was hit with 186, state records show.

Both the Love & Care center and the Yes I Can center have drawn the state’s attention, according to their records, but both remain open. Yes I Can has been fined twice in five years — for $299 both times — and Love & Care once in five years, also for $299.

Lax regulation?

Cagle said that, each year, programs not in compliance receive additional visits and assistance from state monitors.

In spite of the state’s efforts to track day care performance, even some child care providers believe regulation is lax in Georgia, especially when compared to other states.

“There’s never been any repercussions associated with licensing here in Georgia,” said Scott Cotter, president of a corporation, Childcare Network, that has 46 day care centers across the state and a total of 174 in 10 states.

“It’s a very laissez-faire sort of approach. Now other places will bring the hammer on you in a second. So some place like North Carolina, organizationally, right or wrong, we have a different approach to how we deal with things like that. And they are corrected probably before the [state inspector] can walk out of the building.”

In response to Cotter’s comments, Cagle said, “He operates in multiple states. He has that context. I came here to improve the system. That’s what we’re working every day to do. If that’s his take on it, I respect Scott immensely.”

In the dark

Some child care providers told the AJC they weren’t aware of the scoring system; others had vague ideas of it.

Yvette Drake, owner of Kids ’R Kids #31 on South Deshon Road in Lithonia, confused the system with the individual inspection reports that DECAL posts on its website.

“The only thing that I’m aware of is what parents can see [online],” said Drake, whose program has been noncompliant for each of the past four years.

Cotter learned about the compliance system about a year-and-a-half ago, when 16 of his programs were selected to participate in a yearlong program — funded by federal stimulus money — to raise their level of child care.

“That was the first indication that anybody in the provider community became aware that DECAL had some scoring metric that put you in one of two buckets,” Cotter said. “That’s my first recollection of hearing about the system.”

Cagle said DECAL didn’t share the noncompliance scores with day care programs from the beginning because the system was a work in progress.

Cotter and other day care owners, though, say they wish DECAL had told them about the system from the start.

“I would have loved for somebody to come in here and tell me that,” said Christi Mauldin, owner of Cornerstone Academy at Eagle’s Landing in McDonough, which has been classified as noncompliant four straight years. “I hate for a reporter from the AJC to call me and tell me.”

‘A huge difference’

After inspections by the state, day care programs receive documents listing each violation they received and what they did incorrectly. Even so, child care providers said they would have been more aggressive in correcting those issues had they known they had been classified as noncompliant.

“It would have helped me tremendously,” Mauldin said. “Wouldn’t you think that you would [say] ‘Whoa.’... I think you take that a little more serious.”

Cotter agreed: “That would make a huge difference to any owner of a child care center.”

During the past four years, Cotter has operated 50 Childcare Network locations in Georgia, although a few have closed. Of those, a total of 37 were deemed noncompliant at least once; 17 missed the mark for a least two years.

“I wouldn’t say that I’m entirely surprised,” he said, saying he was aware of the violations that the day cares received. “You have that documentation. It is what it is.”

Cotter said he was “embarrassed” to learn that his Childcare Network #20 center on White Bluff Road in Savannah had been noncompliant for four consecutive years.

“We weren’t on top of it, from a standpoint of being more aggressive in correcting deficiencies,” Cotter said.

However, Cotter said he believed DECAL’s scoring system is “highly flawed,” failing to take into account that bigger day care centers — with more children and staffers — have more opportunities for violations. He also took issue with the fact that programs can’t get positive points for doing a good job, only getting dinged for violations.

Cagle said he recently hired a national child care expert to examine DECAL’s regulation of day care centers, including the compliance scoring system.

Cotter also said the state’s weak oversight — and comparatively low subsidy payments for children from low-income families — were reasons that he “would rather spend my resources in other places where there’s a greater commitment from the state.”

‘It’s very discouraging’

Mauldin, who has owned her center in McDonough for 12 years, said she was surprised to learn that DECAL had classified her day care as noncompliant for four straight years.

“It’s a little bit hurtful and it’s very discouraging,” she said.

Mauldin largely attributed her repeated noncompliance to disgruntled employees and parents who called in complaints about her center.

An AJC review of state records shows that Mauldin’s center compiled 65 violations in the past three years, including 21 in the 2011 fiscal year.

None of those violations was deemed to warrant DECAL’s most serious form of punishment, called an “adverse action.”

But Mauldin has compiled just enough core rule violations — some more serious than others — to be considered noncompliant for each of the past four years.

Some of her recent citations:

● Not having the appropriate number of staffers to care for children.

● Not running criminal background checks on people before hiring them.

● Not putting infants to sleep on their backs.

Mauldin, however, also puts part of the blame on DECAL. She estimates that she’s had as many inspectors assigned to her program as she has had years in the business.

The first one, she said, was the best. She still remembers her name. That inspector took time to discuss violations and how to correct employees’ behavior.

“You know what, that was so helpful. We were like a team,” Mauldin said. “I felt like I had someone who really wanted me to succeed.”

She hasn’t had an inspector like that since.

“They’d just rather come in here, put it in the computer and hand you the piece of paper,” Mauldin said. “To me, that’s not helpful.”

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Georgia’s scoring system

The state determines whether a child care provider is in compliance with its “core” health and safety rules — a list of more than 60 rules for larger, center-based programs.

The rules fall under a dozen categories, including discipline, field trips, hygiene and supervision. Some violations could result in a child’s death. Others aren’t life-threatening, but are still considered essential to a child’s wellbeing.

Some examples of violations:

● Leaving a child unattended on a diaper changing table.

● Using profanity toward a child.

● Using medication to discipline or control a child’s behavior.

The state started the scoring system in the summer of 2007 but did not score all day cares during the first two years. It also has revised the system three times in four years, first assigning colors, then numbers and now either a “C” or “NC” depending on whether a provider is compliant.

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Digging into day care

This in-depth data analysis is the latest installment of a six-month investigation of day care by the AJC. Earlier, we examined deaths and injuries of children while in day care and found that child-care providers leave a surprising number of kids alone in vehicles.

Nearly 2,500 Georgia day cares fail to meet state standards ● 2,487 failed to meet the standards for at least one year.

● 859 posted failing scores for two or more years.

● 220 did not meet the standards for at least two consecutive years. (at least 200 are still open.)

● 56 missed the mark for three consecutive years.

● 29 did the same for four years. 26 of them are still open.