Requires the establishment of a letter grading system for child day care providers in the city of New York based upon the results of inspections

2 Co-sponsors

• Diane J. Savino
• Tony Avella

Title of bill

An act to amend the social services law, in relation to the establishment of a letter grading system to classify inspection results for child day care providers in the city of New York

Purpose

To create a comprehensive letter grading system to make the results of child care health and safety inspections more accessible to the public.

Summary of provisions

Section 1 - Amends section 390 of the social services law to direct the commissioner of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene of the City of New York to establish a grading system for the health and safety inspections of child care centers using the letters A, B, and C, with all other letters being deemed failing grades. It also requires that child care providers conspicuously post their inspection grade at the entrance to their licensed facilities and suggests intervals between regularly scheduled inspections for each grade. Finally, it establishes that a child care provider can request a reinspection at any time to upgrade their letter grade.

Section 2 - Provides that the act shall take effect one year after it shall have become law.

Justification

Many childcare providers receive citations from regulating authorities during their required health and safety inspections. However, many of the citations are for dangerous practices that are not apparent to the untrained eye or the casual inspection that a parent visiting a child care provider for the first time might give. As a result, parents must trust that a child care is meeting its health and safety requirements when entrusting it with their small children.

Unfortunately, this is often not the case. An investigation into child care centers in New York City uncovered that thousands of providers are routinely cited for multiple infractions. Furthermore, 236 had received citations during 100% of their inspections, and 88 of them had received citations for the same infraction on multiple occasions. This indicates that many of these providers either did not learn their lesson and address the threat to their wards' health and safety, or acknowledged the threat and did nothing to prevent it occurring again. Many of these infractions were as serious as not conducting required background checks on employees, potentially allowing dangerous criminals access to children, or providing insufficient supervision for children, increasing the likelihood that they might injure themselves or others. Furthermore, when asked about their inspection history, more than half of these child care services denied that they had ever been cited, and the rest tried to downplay their inspection history as much as they could, despite the fact that the results of health and safety inspections are public information. In order to combat these dangers and deceptions, we must make inspection results more available and accessible to parents looking for day care centers for their children.

Legislative history

New Bill

Fiscal implications

None

Effective date

One year after it shall have become law.