• Violation

  R 400.8125 · R 400.8125 Staff; volunteer; requirements. (1) All staff and volunteers shall provide appropriate care and supervision of children at all times.

  On 05/09/2022, program director Ms. Samantha Mitchell submitted an incident report. The reported stated the following: "Ms. Lily [Liliana Richardson] was with the preschool children, doing a bathroom break after lunch and before rest time. She had six preschool children with her. She took five to the classroom without doing a head count. Child A was left in the bathroom alone. He went to the girls' [bath]room to check for his class. He then went to the classroom. He was alone for less than 5 minutes. Ms. Samantha [Mitchell] was in the bathroom [staff bathroom]. Ms. Lily told Ms. Samantha about the incident as soon as she returned to the classroom. An incident report for the family was completed and given to the family at pick up on 05/09/2022 and a verbal report was also given to the family. [The department of] Licensing was given a phone call report at 4:10 p.m." On 05/12/2022, I made an unannounced on-site visit to the center. I met with program director Ms. Samantha Mitchell. Ms. Mitchell confirmed what she had reported in the incident report. She stated that there is both a girls' and a boys' bathroom that are used by the children. They are located just down the hall from Classroom #129. Child care staff members are expected to ensure that they have all of the children when leaving the bathrooms; however, since the attendance in the program has been so low, staff members have probably just been doing visual checks of the children in care instead of actually counting them. This is the first time at the center, that a child has been left unattended. Ms. Mitchell said that Ms. Richardson has worked for the center since last November and is a good employee. "She is good with the kids and interacting with them." She does not believe Ms. Richardson intentionally left Child A unattended and believes that with some additional training and safe guards put into place, it will not happen again. Together we discussed different ways in which child care staff members can keep an accurate count of children when they are in the bathrooms, or whenever they are leaving the classroom. I also provided her with some activities that child care staff members can use to help keep children engaged and safe while they are waiting in line and/or waiting for others. On 05/12/2022, I interviewed child care staff member Ms. Liliana Richardson. She reported that on Monday 05/09/2022, after the children had finished lunch, she had taken a group of children out of Room #129 and walked them down to the girls' and boys' bathroom. When there are both boys and girls in the bathrooms, she waits outside of the bathrooms in the hallway and the children line up in the hallway as they finish. On this particular day, she stated that the children were really loud and were not listening to her. They were running around in the hallway in circles and 3 back and forth to the drinking fountain. As she tried to get everyone's attention, she thought she had all of the children and walked with them back to the classroom. Once the children were inside the classroom they finished taking care of their lunch items, brushed their teeth and got ready for rest time. Approximately 3-5 minutes after they had returned to the classroom, Child A returned to the room. "He was upset, crying, confused, worried. He said he looked around in the hallway, the girls bathroom and then walked back to the room." As soon as Ms. Mitchell returned to the classroom, she informed her of what had happened. Ms. Richardson further reported that nothing like this has happened before and she thinks it was just more chaotic than usual. On 05/12/2022, I interviewed child care staff members Mr. Khalid Dimo and Ms. Heather Wood. Both staff members have worked with Ms. Richardson in Room #129, but they were not present when the incident occurred. They were not aware of any other time that children had been left unattended at the center. They both believe this was just an unintentional mistake made by Ms. Richar

On 05/09/2022, child care staff member Ms. Liliana Richardson left Child A (4-year-old, male) unattended in the bathroom.

Disposition: Substantiated