This article from Minnesota shows on average eight children die in licensed child day care a year. There have been articles lately as well that state that previously deaths said to be SIDS may likely not have been SIDS but suffocation as happened to three month old Dane Abledinger in this article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2172651/Three-month-old-baby-dies-daycare-worker-face-heavy-blanket-floor-left-HOUR-months-girl-16-watch-children-got-hair-done.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Licensed under laws that require state agencies to protect children in day care these state agencies don't and this story is typical of keeping day care providers licensed violation after violation until a child dies then they revoke the license.
As a licensor in Washington State when I witnessed six children being hidden in a closet and two babies each behind closed doors upstairs in a provider's (Connie King) unlicensed space the Department of Early Learning managers would not revoke the provider's license. The provider was licensed for 12 and had 21 preschoolers in care with no assistant; and she wouldn't allow parents to come inside her house.
Another licensor found the same provider operating at over capacity a few days after I was there. Then the supervisor, Darcy Taylor went out and found her not supervising the children.
The taxpayers give Darcy Taylor and other managers a good salary, health care benefits and retirement pensions while the managers do not operate the agency by law, laws that would keep children safe if they enforced the laws.
In addition the Department of Early Learning does not obey the public disclosure law so that parents can get information. The department's history of altering and destroying public records is a felony for which no high ranking state government official would prosecute. The Department of Early Learning's record keeping is designed to hide information from the public as well.
The Department of Early Learning and the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) has been historically protected by the Attorney General's Office. The Attorney General's Office has not been protecting the citizens of Washington State especially when it come to protecting children.
The Department of Early Learning's website is designed to give an illusion that licensing works but as long as the department has no transparency it will be business as usual and failures will continue to be covered up until another child dies.
Parents shouldn't be forced to play Russian Roulette with their children's lives.
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