Lisa spent weeks reviewing CT Department of Public Health child day care center inspection reports. What she found was a system where license revocations were rare and oversight was lax. In fact, she found that several child care centers had numerous complaints and citations against them — but were allowed to continue to operate with little consequences. One center in Norwalk continues to operate after 5 complaints were filed in 3 years including one involving a child restrained by the head and two others involving sexual abuse by a preschool teacher. In 3 years only 2 centers lost their licenses and 1 had their license suspended. Lisa reported that the state’s oversight system had not changed since 2009 — when the Child Health and Development Institute warned about “an alarming number of health and safety concerns” at child day care centers. She compared CT’s oversight to other states and found that Oklahoma, for example, had revoked 33 center licenses — 15 times the rate of Connecticut in the same time period.
