No Force Behind Enforcement
When it cites providers, state doesn't follow through
By Brian Donovan, Investigations Team
Originally published in Newsday, 1999
DAY THREE
A day-care teacher in Hempstead hit a 4-year-old in the face, state records say, splitting his lip.
A day-care teacher in North Merrick frightened little children, records say, by yelling and making threats.
A day-care provider in Freeport left two girls unwatched, the records say, and a man sexually molested them.
A day-care center in Plainview left a teenager in charge of children, the records say, and he sexually molested two boys.
A day-care center in Miller Place subjected children for years, records say, to overcrowding, dirty play areas, unqualified teachers, skimpy meals and a "chaotic" atmosphere.
In each case, the state sent out inspectors who cited the programs for violating day-care regulations.
But under New York State's weak enforcement system for overseeing day care, an official finding that rules have been broken doesn't necessarily mean that violators are punished or that conditions improve for the children, a Newsday investigation found.
The state didn't follow through effectively to protect the kids in the Hempstead and North Merrick programs, and the same teachers continued treating children badly, according to records.
The providers who left kids alone with the molesters weren't penalized, and they remain state-approved providers today.
And for two decades, the state didn't do anything to protect the children at the Miller Place center except issue more violations. The center's license was never suspended, and the owner was never fined.
Cases like these show how the state system has repeatedly allowed day-care children to remain in abusive, dirty, unsafe or badly run facilities, sometimes for years after state inspectors first discovered the problems, Newsday found.
Newsday's 18-month examination of how New York State regulates day care found that in case after case, the well-being of children has been compromised by the predictable failures of a small enforcement staff struggling with growing caseloads, conflicting priorities and gaps in the state's laws and rules.
Straining the system has been the explosive growth in recent years of the number of providers overseen by the state regulatory agency for day care, the Bureau of Early Childhood Services (BECS). The number of state-approved day care centers and home providers has grown from 14,279 providers statewide in 1994 to more than 23,000 this year, fueled by welfare-to-work laws and an increasing number of women in the work force.
Newsday found that:
Inspectors' caseloads are growing on Long Island and are higher than elsewhere. The state tries to oversee all day care on Long Island with about 15 inspectors. By contrast, local governments on Long Island employ about 30 bingo inspectors. The day-care inspectors are supposed to monitor about 1,800 legal programs, investigate illegal providers, look into all complaints and process growing numbers of new applicants. Their caseloads have grown 24.6 percent in five years. In 1995 a Long Island inspector's caseload of 142 was 16.2 percent below the state average. This year the Long Island caseload of 177 is 13.4 percent above the state average. Inspectors spend more time on office paperwork than field inspections, although public health officials recommend the opposite. "They need a lot more help," said Jill Turin, who runs a day-care center in Freeport. "They're stressed out and overworked."
Often investigations are superficial. In many cases examined by Newsday, BECS' entire investigation of a complaint consisted of asking the provider about it, writing a brief report on the provider's denial of a problem, and closing the inquiry. As caseloads have grown, the percentage of complaints substantiated by inspectors has shrunk. In 1995, inspectors substantiated 35 percent of complaints, statewide and on Long Island. This year, only 23 percent of complaints have been substantiated statewide—and only 19 percent on Long Island. Even when kids are hurt, sometimes follow-up action has been tardy. BECS said the teacher involved in the child-abuse violation at the North Merrick center needed three months of close observation—but then the agency didn't check on the situation for eight months and simply accepted the director's assurance that everything was fine.
The system is also understaffed at the top. Only two lawyers at BECS headquarters near Albany make up the state's entire legal staff for enforcement proceedings against day-care providers across the state who are accused of violating regulations. And those lawyers can spend only part of their time on day care because they have other duties. This tiny staff has remained the same size even though the number of providers statewide has increased 51.5 percent since 1995. Because BECS doesn't have lawyers in its regional offices, the two Albany lawyers have to travel around the state to hearings. Other pending cases have to wait or are settled through compromises. Some problem centers like the one in Miller Place, where inspectors repeatedly found safety hazards and dirty conditions, operate for years with no penalties.
Few violators are ever fined. Unlike bars, auto-repair shops and restaurants, day-care providers can safely assume that breaking the rules won't cost them any money. Although state law authorizes fines up to $250 for every day a harmful condition exists at a center, BECS hasn't fined any Long Island center a penny, even when inspectors have documented many such conditions. Fines collected for day-care violations statewide during the 1990s totaled only $3,200 as of October, BECS reported. In contrast, Long Island food establishments were fined about $450,000 by county health departments for violations last year alone. Except in some serious cases, state law makes providers immune to fines if they demonstrate "that corrective action has been taken." Even levying small fines against centers where violations harm or endanger children requires a time-consuming hearing process, another burden on a system employing only two lawyers. The law doesn't authorize fines against state-approved home providers, depriving BECS inspectors of an enforcement tool routinely used by other state agencies. Nine years ago the state comptroller's office recommended that day-care regulators begin fining the worst centers, but the advice has been largely ignored.
Some providers aren't monitored at all. Kids who spend their days with providers who take in only one or two children aren't protected by New York State's regulatory system. Those providers aren't cleared through the state's database of child abusers. No doctor checks on their health. They're not required to be trained in anything. The homes aren't ever inspected. If conditions are bad or kids are harmed, nobody's responsible for making things better or closing down the provider. Twelve other states don't exempt any providers from state oversight. Even providers who are kicked out of the regulated system can continue caring for children as part of this unregulated underground.
Because of this loophole, for example, a North Babylon provider who propped up a bottle on a baby's chest with a heavy purse, causing the baby's death, was allowed to remain in business during state enforcement proceedings in 1997 because she told officials she would care for only two children.
For years the system, according to people who have worked in it and dozens of case files, has generally worked like this: If you run a day-care program, violate rules and children are harmed, the odds are strong that nothing bad will happen to you. You will not be fined. Only rarely will your license be suspended or revoked.
Instead, the state will warn you to do better. If you don't, the state may send training people to lecture you. Whether or not you improve, you will almost certainly remain in business.
Suzanne Zafonte Sennett, director of BECS, said that "prior to 1995 there was little vigor behind enforcement cases." But she said recent statistics show that BECS has begun enforcing the rules more strongly. Serious enforcement actions such as denials, suspensions or revocations of licenses totaled 158 last year statewide, 100 more than in 1997, she said. On Long Island the total was 35, more than in the previous three years combined.
In a letter to Newsday, she said "we acknowledge that there is clear room for further improvements in the area of child care monitoring and inspection. However, we also point proudly to the work already accomplished and that which is under way."
Some of the cases examined by Newsday "highlighted the limitations placed on this office by current law and resources," she said. Others reflected "policies and practices that we have been working hard to strengthen and correct.”
She said a new computer system for provider histories and enforcement records, which is under way, "will go a long way to eradicating some of the concerns you have found in existing files, particularly with regards to maintenance and documentation of provider case histories."
The new system, she said, "will allow us to do adequate, timely and thorough work on a more consistent basis."
As New York governors and legislators have shaped the evolution of the state's laws and regulatory machinery for day care over the years, the system has been asked to carry out two sometimes contradictory jobs.
BECS has been given the jobs of serving both as the cop on the beat, enforcing rules on children's safety and well-being, and also of serving as the supportive coach and trainer for thousands of day-care providers with varying levels of competence and motivation.
Because of growing caseloads and the emphasis on coaching and working in collaboration with providers, the cop role generally comes out in second place, some critics say. The BECS manual for inspectors explains the priorities this way: "Our goal is to keep programs in the system, keep their registrations up to date and to ensure as much as possible that programs are complying with all applicable day care regulations."
Of providers who don't submit required material on time, the manual says: "Generally, actual enforcement should be a last resort once we have exhausted reasonable efforts to work with the program."
In many other states, stronger laws, regulations or administrative procedures have been put in place to address what critics say are some of the weaknesses in New York's regulatory system for day care. For instance, New Jersey and 36 other states, unlike New York, inspect day-care homes before they can operate. New York allows them to open without inspections, and the goal is to inspect only 20 percent a year.
In California, Illinois, Michigan and 22 other states, unlike New York, home providers must live in the home where care is provided. In Massachusetts and Rhode Island, providers with bad records are put on probationary licenses to prod them into improving. In Minnesota, both home providers and centers can be fined without hearings. Since licensing inspectors tend to come from social work or child-care backgrounds, Massachusetts supplements them with professional investigators for the worst cases.
Unlike New York, Vermont and West Virginia require that providers know how to read. "That's important when you're looking at the back of a package of pills that a child just swallowed," said Coleman Baker, Vermont's chief of child-care licensing.
A Man in the Basement
Two sisters, 6 and 7 years old, were sleeping in the TV room of Sylvia Roberts' day-care home in Freeport early one morning in December, 1997. Their mom had dropped them off for breakfast, and as usual, they were napping until it was time to leave for school.
Although BECS didn't know it, Roberts had a man living in her basement, Fitzroy Williams. Court files show a history of violence against his former wife and a conviction for resisting arrest in one of those domestic-abuse incidents.
That morning Williams came up the basement stairs and sexually molested the two little girls. He fondled their buttocks and genital areas, according to records and law enforcement officials.
He was arrested the day after the incident, pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted sexual abuse in the first degree, spent eight months in jail and was deported to Jamaica.
BECS found out about the incident five days after it happened and sent a licensing inspector to interview Roberts and check on her program. The outcome shows how a system that emphasizes helping providers and keeping them registered sometimes allows them to escape adverse consequences when children are harmed.
Records say Roberts was upstairs when Williams molested the girls. She wasn't cited for poor supervision of the children, but the inspector did cite her for seven other violations. The most serious was overcrowding: Roberts had seven children in care, including three infants. Home providers are allowed only two infants and three older children.
Roberts, who declined to talk to Newsday, knew something about Williams' domestic troubles—she told the inspector he was her husband's cousin who "had problems with his wife and needed housing."
State regulations aren't clear on whether providers are supposed to disclose tenants or live-in friends to BECS as "living in the home." They say "any change in family composition" must be reported. They don't define "home" or "family" or ask about tenants or long-term guests.
And no matter what rules are broken, state law doesn't provide for fines against home providers as long as they're registered with the state. Records don't indicate that revoking Roberts' registration as a provider was ever considered. She gave BECS a statement that she'd corrected the violations, and the agency closed the case.
In a statement, Sennett, the BECS director, said: "The case was not brought to the attention of the Central Office [in Albany] for enforcement consultation or referral. This was not an appropriate decision on the part of the regional office [on Long Island]. We are currently evaluating this case to determine the appropriate next steps."
Five weeks after the girls were molested, Roberts applied to the Long Island BECS office for authorization to care part time for two school-age children in addition to the preschoolers she already had in day care.
Two weeks later, BECS approved the request and notified the Child Care Council of Nassau, which helps parents in search of day care find openings in state-approved programs. "Thank you for your expressed interest in quality child care," BECS said in its form letter to Roberts.
A Teenage Molester
A 6-year-old boy was singing in the shower in the fall of 1997, records say, when his mother heard him refer to sexual matters she thought he knew nothing about.
She asked him about what he was singing, and that conversation began an unraveling of secrets that led BECS to issue a substantiated child-abuse violation against the boy's day-care program at the Mid-Island Y in Plainview, records show.
The case illustrates how the state allows even day-care providers to avoid fines or other punishment, even when violations result in serious harm to children. Officials of the Mid-Island Y declined to be interviewed. State records tell this story:
The boy told his mother that a 15-year-old boy working at the day-care center had orally sodomized him and kissed him. The youngster told his mother he hated the teenager, and if he "touched his little brother he would kill him." The teenager could have been molesting the 6-year-old over several months, records said.
When police went to the center, records say, they learned that officials there had been keeping something quiet, too. More than a month earlier, state records show, center officials had learned that the same teenager had sexually abused an 11-year-old boy. He had fondled the boy's genitals while helping him use a computer, records say.
Officials of the center and the 11-year-old's parents had agreed not to report the abuse to police or other agencies as long as the teenager was quietly fired and put into therapy, according to records. At that point, officials of the center didn't know that the teenager had also molested the 6-year-old, records say. The younger boy's family notified the police, and the teenager was arrested.
Two weeks later, BECS found out about the case from a lawyer for the 6-year-old's family. After investigating, the state agency cited the Mid-Island Y for child abuse and several other substantiated violations of day-care regulations.
The agency found the center hadn't obtained the required state license for its before- and after-school program, which both abuse victims were in. That meant the center hadn't given BECS the identities of those caring for the children.
If that had been done, BECS would have found out some of them were under 18 and couldn't legally be left alone with children, according to records. The state said the center had improperly "hired minors to supervise day care children" and "did not follow child abuse reporting and screening procedures."
Joyce Glick, the Mid-Island Y's acting executive director, said the organization would not comment because of a pending lawsuit by the 6-year-old's family. She said the center "has a history of providing quality day care to the community for more than 15 years. We take the health and welfare of our children with the utmost seriousness and concern, which is exemplified by our reputation." Lawyers for the center denied in court papers that it was negligent in the hiring of the teenager or in the way he was supervised. The papers also denied that the Mid Island Y had failed to adequately investigate a previous complaint of sexual misconduct.
In 1996, the year before the two boys were molested, BECS got a parent's complaint of another sexual incident at the center. A state report says: "Child told mother she saw a boy with a big penis in the bathroom. Mom checked school and is sure it is a boy (not a man) who was in the bathroom with other children playing with himself. Mom learned that girls and boys share bathroom … "
The mother told BECS that the center "didn't take her seriously and brushed off the incident. She was told … if she did not like the school she could take her child out." BECS visited the center a week later, "found no indication of lack of supervision" and wrote off the complaint as unsubstantiated. The records do not show that BECS made any attempt to identify the boy who'd exposed himself in the bathroom.
One of the 6-year-old's lawyers, Dunewood Truglia, said a more thorough investigation should have been done. "This was an early warning sign that they had a sexual predator," he said.
In the case involving the two boys who were molested, the state closed the matter without a fine or license suspension. In a statement, Sennett said that because the center came into compliance and installed a new fire system "in that part of the building serving school-age children, this Office determined that [the center's] funds were better used in investing in this needed equipment than being paid into a fine that would have no material effect on improving the health and safety conditions for children."
As a general policy, BECS officials say, it's better for day-care centers, particularly struggling facilities in poor neighborhoods, to spend their money on improvements rather than fines. "We'd rather put more money into the program than into the state's general fund," said Edward Watkins, one of BECS' two enforcement lawyers.
Truglia, however, said fines would deter violations by others. "If you can't fine them, the only other sanction is to put them out of business," he said. "Fines are an accepted way of keeping society under control. They ought to rethink their policy." The Mid-Island Y has an annual budget of about $5 million, according to records.
Truglia said the teenager has been sent to a residential treatment facility. The little boy who was sodomized, Truglia said, "will be in therapy for a long time."
Imminent Danger
When BECS found in 1994 that a 4-year-old boy had been hit in the face by a teacher at the Dorothy K. Robin Child Care Center in Hempstead, the agency declared the teacher's conduct posed an "imminent danger" to children.
"The child's lip was busted and bleeding," the complaint report said. "Child's lip was swollen for two days. Parent asked teacher what happened, and teacher … admitted to hitting child."
The teacher, Carolyn Hall, had to be retrained "immediately" in how to discipline children properly, BECS ordered in filing a substantiated child-abuse violation against the center.
More than three years later, BECS actually got around to making that happen—and the teacher's behavior, records say, improved significantly. But during the 38-month delay, children in Hall's 4-year-olds class continued to spend their days in what one report called "an authoritarian dictatorship" that stifled their ability to learn.
David Washington, vice president of the center's board, insisted the state found the hitting complaint "unfounded," though records say it was substantiated. Hall and center director Joseph Cooper did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
In 1996 a BECS inspector visiting Hall's class found "a lack of interaction, i.e., positive response to children. No encouraging statements … When children told teacher they loved her, she did not respond."
In January, 1997, BECS again criticized Hall after an inspection visit: "The teaching methodology of Ms. Hall is restrictive. Her tone is harsh. Children are not learning in a self-initiated, group-initiated environment … There is a lack of positive interaction between staff and children."
In July, 1997, the state finally followed up on the problem it had described as an imminent danger three years earlier. Training experts from the New York State Child Care Coordinating Council began observing and working with Hall. The initial assessment: "It was apparent during the observation that an authoritarian dictatorship was practiced."
But after a few months of training, reports said, "Ms. Hall's attitude is significantly different. She is very interested in learning and has changed her tone of voice when talking to the children … Ms. Hall has made some significant changes in the classroom as well as her attitude becoming much more positive."
Records released by BECS don't explain why it took so long to get the teacher trained. But a recent audit by the state comptroller's office found that such lapses weren't unusual. In 1998 the auditors sampled 50 cases and found an error rate of 20 percent in BECS' performance in looking into complaints and in making sure violations were corrected in a timely way.
The auditors said "a complaint tracking system that does not accurately reflect the status of all complaints is not a useful monitoring tool. As a result, Bureau managers cannot rely on data in the system to determine whether complaints have been investigated, or whether providers have acted to correct deficiencies."
Sennett said that system is now being modernized and "should go a long way in helping to maintain official documentation and historical record keeping on providers."
Frightened Children
Teacher Susan Trapani would yell and make threats, frightening children at the Town of Hempstead Day Care Center in North Merrick, according to records. Some children begged to be kept away from her, a former colleague said.
Trapani and former head teacher Alissa Cusumano each had a group of kids in a room partly divided down the middle by cubbies and toy shelves. The sink was on Trapani's side. When kids in Cusumano's class had to wash their hands, they would whisper pleas to her not to make them cross over to where Trapani might notice them, Cusumano said.
They would beg her to take them down the hall to the bathroom instead, Cusumano said. "She yells and screams and I'm scared," one little boy said in notes Cusumano made of the incidents.
There are conflicting accounts about whether Trapani used physical force on children. The center's former director, Zane Williams, told BECS in April, 1996, that Trapani had physically punished children several times, including holding a child in the air and shaking the child. The state agency investigated, found the complaint against Trapani substantiated and cited the center for violations of child-abuse and supervision regulations. After finding that Trapani was "shaking children and yelling at them,” BECS directed the center to "train staff in appropriate methods of caring for children.”
Trapani denied physically punishing any child, however, and another agency, Nassau County's Child Protective Services, later found the shaking incident "unfounded.”
"All of these allegations are completely false … nothing was ever founded in any form of abuse that I have ever, ever hurt a child. It's completely an unfounded ground,” she said in a recent interview. In a letter to Newsday last week, Trapani said, "I would never harm a child. NEVER!”
She described Williams as a disgruntled former employee seeking revenge. Cusumano and Williams told Newsday that although they often complained about Trapani's conduct, she couldn't be fired because her sister served on the board of town officials and employees that ran the center. Williams was fired in April, 1996, by the center's board. She said it was for raising too many questions about Trapani. Board members, however, said she wasn't a good administrator.
The center's daily log, kept by Williams, reported two other incidents of Trapani being rough with children. One entry said, "I observed Susan grabbing [a child] in a very angry way … " Another entry: "A parent complained to me about Susan grabbing a child's face very angrily, squeezing his cheeks and asking him why he was pulling [another boy's] hair."
In another incident, a report signed by Trapani said: "After two attempts to stop [a boy] from throwing food (plastic) in the kitchen area I grabbed his shirt. He lost his footing and rolled into the chair, hitting his left temple."
Trapani denied doing anything wrong in those alleged incidents as well. CPS issued its determination in May, 1997, of "unfounded” for the alleged shaking incident Williams had reported 13 months earlier. The center's former board president, John Gibilaro, said CPS didn't look into the matter until "many months" after the complaint. The reason for the delay couldn't be established; CPS officials are prohibited from discussing cases.
Trapani said her sister's position on the board of directors never benefited her. The sister, Edith Longo, and other board members said Trapani had been a good teacher and was shown no favoritism.
A memo by Cusumano quotes Gibilaro as telling her in 1997 that "attorneys are looking into" who made complaints to outside agencies about Trapani and that "if he finds out an employee made calls, they will be terminated immediately." Gibilaro and the center's legal counsel, Francesca Capitano, denied that any efforts were made to find or punish employees who made complaints. Cusumano left the center later that year after a dispute over staffing.
Both in public schools and day care, punishing children with physical force is prohibited. Public school teachers who break this rule, officials say, often get fired.
But in Trapani's case, BECS settled for a "corrective action" plan that left her on the job, then failed to follow up in a timely way on whether she actually improved, records show.
After concluding that Trapani must be "retrained in disciplinary methods and observed closely for three months," BECS didn't revisit the center for eight months. Then the agency closed the matter after accepting the center's assurance that "there is no abuse toward children and it will never happen."
BECS director Sennett, in a statement, said the BECS investigation "revealed that, while the April, 1996, complaint was about a particular teacher, there were underlying issues related to the lack of adequate supervision and oversight of staff.” She noted the center had filed a plan to retrain staff and hire a new director.
Last year BECS got a complaint that Trapani forced a 4-year-old girl who had a toilet-training accident to sit in her soiled underpants. Regulations prohibit humiliating punishments. The name of the person who made the complaint was deleted from records released to Newsday.
The complaint report said "Trapani has done this in the past, and the director was made aware of it and has done nothing to stop the teacher's abusive behavior. Susan Trapani is related to a board member and … is allowed to do as she pleases."
Trapani denied she had done anything abusive. "Accidents happen when you are potty-training a child, and there's nothing more I can say about that," she said. A BECS inspector wrote off the complaint as unsubstantiated after the "director assured me that Ms. Trapani doesn't intimidate her, that Ms. Trapani has come a long way" since the earlier complaints.
The records mentioned two possible witnesses to the toilet-training incident. But there was no mention of their being interviewed.
‘Dangerously Noncompliant'
For more than 20 years, a day-care center called A to Z Adventures in Miller Place received repeated violation notices telling the management to do basic things such as sweeping the floor, putting soap and paper towels in the bathrooms, cleaning dirt off the toys and serving children more than two ounces of milk with their meals.
State records going back to the 1970s describe a dirty, "chaotic" facility unwilling to comply with regulations. Inspectors found fire hazards, broken toys, poor security, a leaky roof, a dangerous pool, unsafe wiring, uncharged fire extinguishers, cold drafts blowing through leaky doors and poor supervision. Twice when children were hurt, nobody could explain.
And for years, records show, all of the inspections and citations accomplished little. The Long Island office of BECS recommended twice, in 1986 and 1991, that Albany crack down through legal action against the center. But there is no sign in the records that any steps were taken to force the center to comply.
Periodically, children would get hurt or simply be overlooked, records say. In 1992, a teacher who was working alone with too many kids closed the center for the night and left 2-year-old Katelynn Hillenbrand alone in the dark for almost four hours. Her frightened mother, who couldn't reach owner Marie Makrides or other employees, finally found her daughter when a police officer forced open a window at the center. The child was cold and soaked with urine.
Makrides did not respond to requests for an interview.
A BECS inspector wrote in 1997 that the center "has fallen below minimally acceptablelevels. Staff coverage is inadequate; the pool may be a health hazard; health procedures are poor; sanitation is poor; safety concerns are prevalent … Staffing was dangerously non-compliant … Atmosphere was chaotic."
Training experts from the New York State Child Care Coordinating Council were dispatched from Albany to work with Makrides and her staff. A teacher was promoted to director, and for a while, officials were pleased with progress at the center. But then the new director and two other teachers quit, and the problems intensified.
"From working intensely with this program for the last nine months, we feel strongly that the owner is not committed to making long term changes to benefit the program," Robin Beller, one of the trainers, wrote in a report.
Late last year, while Newsday was looking into the history of this and other centers with records of violations, BECS negotiated an agreement with the center to renew its license for one year contingent on new management and "renewed commitment to training."
Sennett said in a statement: "Since March, 1999, there have been three monitoring visits, and the program appears to have made significant improvements under the leadership of the new program director. Therefore, while the long profile of limited action [by BECS] is not one that we would want to see in a contemporary case, we believe that our efforts in the past year have resulted in positive change … "
‘Unacceptable Risks'
Laureen Latouche of North Babylon was 85 days old on April 10, 1997, when her day-care provider, Audrey Brown, propped up a baby bottle on her chest with a purse that weighed 31/2 pounds.
Laureen choked on the formula, stopped breathing and lost consciousness. Brown was shopping for rugs at the time with five day-care children, including Laureen in a stroller.
By the time Brown noticed Laureen's problem, it was too late. She never came out of a coma and died eight days later later.
BECS officials decided Brown should no longer be a state-approved day-care provider and began taking steps to revoke her registration. It was a slow process—even though BECS officials knew Brown was still caring for children, she wasn't given a letter suspending her registration until six months after Laureen's death, and the revocation didn't actually happen until January, 1998.
But because of a gap in New York State law, there wasn't any point in moving faster. After Laureen's death, Brown and her lawyer notified BECS that from then on, she planned to care for no more than two children. Under New York's laws, day-care providers who care for only two children are exempt from any state oversight.
Even when providers are kicked out of the state-regulated system for serious violations, as Brown was, they can legally continue caring for one or two day-care children without any government rules or scrutiny. And because they're outside the scope of the law, there is no system of inspections to see if they really limit their program to only two children.
Records on the Brown case show she continued caring for children for at least several months after Laureen's death. BECS sent her name to the State Central Register, a database of people who have abused or maltreated children. BECS also told the Child Care Council of Suffolk not to refer any more children to Brown. But those steps don't put providers out of business if they take in only two children.
Brown's husband, Eric, said she did not want to comment. Eric Naiburg, a lawyer who is handling a lawsuit against the state and county over Laureen's death, said the Latouche family had no comment. In court papers, the state has denied any responsibility in the death.
Brown is not named in the suit. Naiburg said the Latouche family bears no ill will against Brown.
The American Public Health Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics published recommended day-care standards in 1992 saying that all providers caring for children who aren't part of their family should be subject to state health and safety rules, even for only one or two children.
The two groups said regulating all providers "gives government the authority to protect children as vulnerable and dependent citizens and to protect families as consumers of child care services … These exclusions and gaps in coverage expose children to unacceptable risks."
