The recent sexual assault of a 4-year-old girl at a daycare center should draw the attention of any parent considering using a daycare center. Springdale Arkansas police arrested 18-year-old Cesar Monarrez, who worked part-time at the Royal Children’s Academy. The 4-year-old girl told her parents that Monarrez touched her with a knife. As I understand it, this happened during nap time and the daycare uses surveillance video that captured the assault.
Millions of parents leave their young children every day in day care centers with the idea that their children will be safe because these centers are regulated and there are not many known cases in which children are assaulted in these places. For the most part, the vast majority of day care centers provide a safe and loving environment for our children. Many day care centers use video surveillance to further protect children from abuse and neglect. The use of video surveillance also gives parents the opportunity to monitor their children from the Internet while they are at work or at home. I applaud daycare centers that use video surveillance systems that have the feature where parents can view the video feed from home or work. If you were looking for a nursery for a young child, you would definitely choose one that has this type of video surveillance.
An important safety element of daycare centers is the selection of employees who will care for your children while you are at work. I think many daycare centers lack this area because they don’t pay their employees well, which leads to high turnover. Look for a school that has teachers/carers who have been on the premises for a long time. Stay away from daycare centers that have new teachers/caregivers every two months. Ask the daycare you’re considering about their employees and ask if they do extensive background checks. If the daycare owner/manager seems uninspired about safety precautions, walk away and never look back.
In the Springdale Arkansas case, the suspect was an 18-year-old part-time employee. As a father who has had his daughter in daycare, I can tell you that he would not choose a daycare that has male employees. It has been my experience over the past 19 years in law enforcement that men are more often the offenders in assaults on children, it is a fact. If you visit the nurseries you will see that 99.9% of the employees are women and there is a reason for this. Most day care centers understand that parents are not comfortable leaving their young children with men they don’t know.
Once you’ve found a daycare you like, check with your state business office and see if there have been any complaints or violations. Call your local police agency and try to make sure there have been any investigations/complaints at the daycare. Sometimes there may be a police investigation into a daycare and it may not have been reported or registered with the state department of business regulation. Crime statistics are public information and many police agencies have log books that you can review to see where crimes have been reported.
Once your child goes to the daycare you have chosen, you still need to be vigilant for your child’s safety. Make unexpected visits to the nursery at different times to see first-hand the environment in which your child is. When my daughter was 3 years old, I had to find another daycare for her because the travel time to her current daycare was too long. I found a daycare at a local church and a fellow police officer’s mother was the administrator. I toured the nursery and found it very modern and fully staffed. The administrator was a very loving and safety oriented older woman who had been working at the daycare for years. The only concern she had was the fact that the daycare used 18-year-old college students as part-time teacher aides in every classroom. This worried me because I think young women don’t have the patience or experience to take care of my son. My ideal daycare teacher/caregiver is a mother or grandmother over the age of 30 who works in the daycare field because she loves children and not because she is desperate for work.
I decided to go to this church nursery and felt confident that I had made a wise decision. I think because of my job as a police officer, I am more cautious and confident than the average parent. I would pick my daughter up in the late afternoon when she finished my shift and my ex-wife was responsible for dropping her off in the morning. 2 weeks passed and everything was going well with the new nursery. I was pleased that all the staff were very safety oriented. One afternoon I arrived at the nursery in my patrol car and in full uniform. My daughter was in the fenced in yard with 2 teachers she hadn’t seen before. I walked to the playground and one of the teachers demanded a photo ID in order to pick up my daughter. I was pleasantly surprised that he asked for my ID and I gladly gave it to him. Day care centers must require photo identification from anyone who picks up a child who is not known to staff.
Several days later I left and had the opportunity to take my daughter to daycare. I arrived at the school and walked my daughter to the classroom that she uses to play in the morning. I walked into the classroom and saw a horde of kids playing and a teacher I had met before and a student aide I hadn’t seen before. I then observed a girl sitting on the floor crying for unknown reasons. The student assistant looked at the boy and said, “You know I don’t like crying babies, now she stops crying.” The assistant then called a nearby child by her name and said, “Johnny, tell Abby I don’t like to cry.” babies,” I kissed my daughter goodbye and left the school.
As I was driving home, I thought about the incident with the crying girl and the student assistant and it disturbed me. That boy’s parents had no idea that her son was lying on the floor crying and the teacher and student assistant did nothing to comfort her. The only action taken by staff was that the student assistant ridiculed the crying girl and made fun of her in front of the other children. I turned my truck around and drove back to the school where I walked to the administrator’s office. I spoke to the manager and informed her of the incident and told her that I was extremely unhappy that it could have been my daughter who was being treated so coldly by the staff. I told the manager that I demand loving care for my daughter and what I observed earlier was cold and inappropriate behavior. That was my daughter’s last day at that nursery.
I was referred to a large church in the city that has operated a day care center for years and all the employees have been there for a long time. The teacher in my daughter’s new classroom was very involved in that church and I found her to be a very loving teacher who thought of her work as a calling. My daughter spent 2 years in the new daycare and I have since referred many people there as I strongly believe it is a completely safe learning environment for young children.
As parents, we must be thorough with our precious little ones in our search for a daycare that is safe and employs the right people to care for our children.