Two state lawmakers are calling for New York City to make it easier for parents to know about any problems with their child’s day care center.
State Sens. Jeff Klein and Diane Savino, both Democrats, are proposing a letter grading system for day care centers citywide, similar to the system health officials implemented at restaurants.
“Parents should not have to become investigators” Savino said Thursday. "They should not have to sit down and figure out if there are violations against the facility.”
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene oversees day care inspections and said in a statement, “There’s nothing more important than the safety of our children. We have a robust inspection process in place, and we will review this proposal.”
The agency also said day care-related complaints are down compared with previous years and new staff has been added to deal with ones that are reported.
Over the summer, a 4-month-old boy died at a day care in SoHo that an investigation revealed had never been licensed or registered by the state. Amber Scorah, the young boy's mother, said the day care had been in business for 14 years; she had heard about it through friends and media.
Scorah said there was no indication it was unlicensed. Her son's cause of death remains under investigation.
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Experts say that when evaluating a day care facility for your children, ask whether it is a licensed facility, how much training its staff receives, and whether employees are CPR certified.
Parents can access violation history for day cares in the five boroughs here, but Klein and Savino believe more should be done to put any violations or license problems in parents' plain view.
Lee Towndrow, the father of the 4-month-old boy who died at the SoHo facility, agrees.
"We think it's important these day cares be held to safety standards in an open way," he said.
According to Health Department data, most day care violations in Manhattan and Queens are for failure to maintain the facility. In Brooklyn and the Bronx, most violations stems from incomplete background checks of employees. On Staten Island, day care workers were mostly cited for workers not being properly trained in first aid.
