State officials flagged compliance issues at child care centers in New Canaan following unannounced inspections this month and last.
Corrective action plans from Toddlertime Nursery School and The Tot’s Spot are due Feb. 19, according to documents filed by the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood.
During a Feb. 5 inspection at Toddlertime on Park Street, inspector Terri Ruducha-Roberts found that a rabies certificate for an animal named ‘Bandit’ was not available for review and also found “entrapment hazards” at a gate and near stairs, with a fence screw protruding and “rust on gate accessible,” according to Child Care Center/Group inspection form filled out by Ruducha-Roberts.
As with local health inspections of restaurants and hair and nail salons, the reports are on file at Town Hall.
Barbara Davis of Toddlertime said that local and state inspectors “do a good job at what they do.”
“They find things that we miss, all in an effort to keep the children safe,” Davis told NewCanaanite.com. “They are here for a long time. They disrupt your day but the purpose is to make sure that we run a top facility and I think everyone in New Canaan does. In other areas they might serve more of a purpose but I appreciate when they point out things that we could do better.”
During a Feb. 6 inspection at The Tot’s Spot on Old Stamford Road, Ruducha-Roberts found that a staff health record/TB test had expired, that one staff member was overseeing 11 children (the state requirement is a 1:10 ratio, according to the report), that an illness report was not available for review, that Tylenol was not labeled, that a diapering table wasn’t disinfected after a diaper change was observed and that there was an entrapment hazard in the corner of a fenced play yard, according to her report.
Representatives from The Tot’s Time could not be reached for comment.
Regulations governing child daycare centers and group care homes are outlined in Section 19 of the Connecticut General Statutes.
Full, unannounced inspections are conducted annually, according to Maggie Adair, the director of government and community relations with the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood.
Corrective action plans are not unusual as a matter of follow-up from the OEC, and they do not indicate a “failed” inspection or any egregious violations of the state statute, Adair said.
Other inspections conducted in the new year include Jan. 10 at the New Canaan YMCA Child Development Center (corrective action plan due Jan. 30) and Feb. 1 at the Day Care Center of New Canaan (due Feb. 15).
At the YMCA, Ruducha-Roberts found that the program did not have an illness report, that Clorox wipes were not locked in two rooms, that Fantastik was not locked in Kids Unlimited after-school program and that a diaper table was porous. At Day Care Center, the only compliance issue cited by the inspector was an “entrapment hazard” on each side of a playground gate.