Department of Social Services Community Care Licensing Division

If you are researching for a preschool for your child or curious about how well your child(ren)'s current school/daycare facility is complying with the rules and regulations surrounding their child care license, you must check out the Department of Social Services Community Care Licensing Division website.

In my research for a preschool for my child, I came across this website. It raised a red flag on one of the top three schools I am interested in learning more of. In a list of licensed child care facilities in my area, this particular school came up with the license status of "Probationary" while the statuses of all the other schools are simply "Licensed". This was the red flag that prompted me to pursue further. Why is their license on probation? Unfortunately, the website doesn't provide this information. To view the licensing file of any facility, one would have to personally go to a regional office and request for a review. I called our regional office to see if I could get more information before I make the trip.

The woman who helped me was very helpful. She read to me all the information under this school's file from the last three years (which coincides with the amount of time its license has been put on probation). With over 15 entries, the complaints/violations this school accumulated in the past three years ranged from a mild violation of staff to child ratio on a certain day to a serious complaint of a teacher pushing a child down on his/her chest to get the child to lay down for a nap. Other serious violations included cutting bread on a meat-cutting surface, children found in the bathroom during nap time without shoes and socks on and unsupervised, staff members yelling at each other thereby scaring the children, staff members not knowing who is in charge when the director was out, foul smell in the kitchen due to old food being discarded improperly, etc, etc. I was stunned by all these violations from one single school. One would never guess the inadequacies of this school when visiting its website. With all the pictures of smiling children, testimonies from satisfied parents, and a convincing curriculum, the website painted a very pretty picture of this school. And with the number of children still enrolled, most of the parents are probably unaware of what's going on. It's vital to keep abreast of the licensing status of your child(ren)'s school even if all seem fine on the surface. You wouldn't know what you will find.

After I had heard enough about this school and all its violations, and needless to say after crossing it off my list of contenders, I inquired about two other schools on my list. To my amazement one school had only 1 minor violation in its 13 years of operation and the other had only 2 minor violations in 16 years. With this information in hand, I am ready to visit these two schools in person and hopefully be able to choose one for my child.

I am very glad I came across the Department of Social Services Community Care Licensing Division website (http://www.ccld.ca.gov/). This is a very useful resource for parents looking for a dependable school/child care facility for their children. Please make use of it. Even if the website doesn't raise any concern about your facility, do not be shy to call your regional office to inquiry further.