IMPOSIBLE INFO MAZE
Parents face lengthy wait for basic state, city data
IN NEW YORK CITY’S day care maze, sometimes it’s what a parent can’t see that matters most.
A parent looking for child care on Staten Island who comes upon provider Sherrie Byrd’s facility at 53 Maple Parkway will discover an immaculate record.
The state Office of Children and Family Services website lists the Sherrie Byrd day care with no enforcement actions over the last five years. The city Health Department child care website reports zero violations there as of Oct. 20. Here’s what the sites don’t say: On July 24, 2014, 3-year-old Edward Harris found his way into the backyard of Mother Byrd, a day care next door at 51 Maple Parkway. He drowned in an above- ground pool shared by the two facilities. Both day cares were owned by Sherrie Byrd.
The city Health Department filed a report with the state detailing Byrd’s many failings.
“You and your staff failed to adequately supervise (the child). The barrier surrounding your pool was not appropriately secured and not sufficient to keep (the child) from accessing the pool,” the report said.
Inspectors also noted that Mother Byrd “did not have current and accurate attendance records” regarding the children receiving care.
On July 29, 2014, the state revoked the license for Mother Byrd day care.
The state did not revoke or otherwise sanction Sherrie Byrd’s license for the day care center next door, and none of the reports or sanctions regarding the toddler’s drowning are readily available to the public.
The reports are available if a parent files a request under the Freedom of Information Law and waits months for a response.
Why the state claims Sherrie Byrd has not been sanctioned since January 2011 remains a mystery. Last month, Sherrie Byrd’s day care was up and running on Maple Parkway, but she refused to discuss the matter and threatened The News with a lawsuit before slamming the door.
State spokesman Steve Flamisch said, “By law, each program has its own due process rights and must be evaluated independently. There are no violations at Ms. Byrd’s 53 Maple Parkway program warranting license suspension or revocation.”
Flamisch said regulatory changes made by the the family services office bar providers like Byrd from having more than one program.
“Ms. Byrd will not be able to open any additional home-based programs,” he said.
A Daily News investigation found that the hidden details about the drowning at Mother Byrd’s is hardly an anomaly. New York’s system for tracking conditions at day care facilities is a bureaucratic maze that hides serious infractions and prevents parents from seeing what’s really going on.
In some cases after a day care license is revoked, a provider continues caring for children under a different corporate name at an adjacent address or even in the same location but one floor above. The city, meanwhile, deletes all inspection information more than two years old. If an incident occurred three years ago, a parent won’t know about it, no matter how serious it was.
And the information provided is often cryptic and filled with legal jargon that doesn’t spell out what inspectors actually found.
Some violations are easy to understand such as, “No working fire