The Merit School of Doc Stone (#67)

8VAC20-780-420-B · Repeat Violation

Staff are required to promptly inform parents when persistent behavioral problems are identified; such notification shall include any disciplinary steps taken in response. Evidence: Between November 2025 and January 2026, a child in Montessori C, three-years-old, hit teachers on nine different occasions and staff failed to notify the parents of the behavior.

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8VAC20-780-210-A-4-a · Repeat Violation

Program leaders are required to be at least 18 years of age, have fulfilled a high school program completion or the equivalent, and have six months of supervised programmatic experience and withing six months before being promoted or beginning work or one month after being promoted or beginning work, a minimum of 24 hours of training shall be received related to the care of children. Evidence: The record for Staff #1, the acting program lead for the infant class, did not have documentation of training hours required to be lead qualified. The required training has not been started, and the teacher has been acting lead for seven weeks.

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8VAC20-780-210-A-4-a · Program leaders are required to be at least 18 years of age, have fulfilled a high school program completion or the equivalent, and have six months of supervised programmatic experience and withing six months before being promoted or beginning work or one month after being promoted or beginning work, a minimum of 24 hours of training shall be received related to the care of children.

Evidence: The record for Staff #1 did not contain documentation of the training hours required to be lead qualified. The required training has not been started, and the teacher has been in the lead teacher position for five weeks.

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8VAC20-780-350-Q · The center is required to obtain a parent?s written permission and written assessment by the program director and program leader to assign a child to a different age group if such age group is appropriate for the child?s developmental level.

Evidence: Child #1, 15 months old, was moved to the toddler classroom without a written assessment by the program director and program leader.

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8VAC20-780-80-A · For each group of children, the center shall maintain a written record of daily attendance that documents the arrival and departure of each child in care as it occurs.

Evidence: In the Montessori C class (ages three, four, and five-years-old) 14 children were present, the written record reflected there were 13.

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8VAC20-780-160-C · A tuberculosis (TB) screening is required every two years from the last screening.

The tuberculosis screening for Staff #2 was dated 6/3/22. The updated screening was due five months ago and had not been completed at the time of inspection.

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8VAC20-780-340-A · Repeat Violation

When staff are supervising children, they shall always ensure their care, protection and guidance. On 5/22/24 at approximately 3:30 p.m. Three two-year-old children left the playground area through an unsecured gate and were on the sidewalk next to the parking lot.

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8VAC20-780-40-E · Based on interviews with staff, the center failed to ensure that the centers activities, services, and facilities were maintained in compliance with their own policies that are required the standards.

Evidence: 1. The center did not follow written playground safety procedures that included provision for active supervision by staff to include positioning of staff in strategic locations, scanning play activities, and circulating among children. 2. On 6/10/24 between 10:00 a.m.? 10:50 a.m. there were 39 children and four staff on the big playground. At approximately 10:50am a child alerted staff that a group of children were eating seeds. All four staff were unaware that children were ingesting the toxic seeds. 3. Interviews revealed that two staff were sitting on a bench at the time of the incident and staff stated they did not have a direct line of sight of all children. 4. Children gathered pods that had fallen from a tree, opened the pods, and consumed seeds. One child reportedly consumed 19 seeds.

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8VAC20-780-340-A · Based on interviews, staff who were supervising children did not always ensure their care, protection, and guidance.

Evidence: Interviews confirmed that on 4/30/24 staff working in the two-year classroom did not intervene when Staff #1, entered the room, roughly handled, and used verbal remarks demeaning to a child in their care. Staff present at the time of the incident did not attempt to prevent Staff #1 from interacting with Child #1 and did notify administration of the interaction.

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