Down here in Florida I went to our local office of Children and Family Services.
There I was allowed to look over all the licensed and registerd daycares in my area.
In the folders were all the information I needed.
Violations
School Licensing
Certification for Teachers
Employment History with the Center
Paperwork Requiremts
Parent Complaints.
This place was invaluble. One of the centers I had visited was what I thought a good fit for our son.
It was clean, the teachers were nice and the children were active and safe. Or so I thought
Then I went and read there folder.
1st Complaint by a parent: Upon arriving to pick up a child, NO adult supervison could be located in the entire building A adult finally appeared nearly 10 minutes later.!!
2nd Complaint by parent: 4 year found in the middle of the street!!!! No adult in the vicinty. No one in the daycare was aware the child had gone missing.
For both instances the daycare was merely fined.
This was my last day to find daycare. I was desperate, but would stay home b4 I would put my son in harns way. So as a last resort I asked the women in the office to pull for me the daycares they had supervised with no violations.
They provided me with the folder of 2 centers.
The only violations they had were paperwork. As in the attendance records were not completley filled out.
The first center I visited was run by a woman who was a foster parent for 13 years. They had no violations for safety, health or supervision they had several parental commendations in ther folder.
The center has computers for the children. They learn to read and spell and play memory games.
They have water fridays during the summer. They play in the sprinklers and little plastic pools.
They provide my son with lunch and 2 snacks a day, niether of which I need to provide. The only thing I am required to bring is Apple Juice they provide milk.
I love that when my son is not with me he is with people I trust. It is soooooo important that you are happy with the people that are spending 40 hours a week with your child.
Anyway the whole point of this is to recommend that you check with your local department of Child and Family Services and find out as much as you can. They are technically not supposed to 'Recommend' but they can provide you with the info you 'request'. And this way you can really see what's going on!!
Here is the link for NYD C&FS. Just find your county!!
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NY State Dept of Children and Family Services
