Lawmakers propose letter grade system for NYC day care centers amidst new report

NEW YORK (WABC) -- There's a new effort to hold day care centers accountable and ease the concerns of many parents.

A report released Thursday looked at nearly 2,300 group day care centers across the city for the past three years. Brightside Academy in the Bronx ranked as the top violator, but this is a problem that goes far beyond this one center.

Some lawmakers say a lack of transparency about inspection records is creating a safety hazards for countless parents and children across the city.

The report found more than 18,000 total violations since 2013, an average of eight violations per daycare, with Brooklyn faring the worse of all the boroughs.

Everything from disrepair to failure to provide background checks on employees and workers untrained in life-saving procedures. Hundreds of centers are repeat offenders and still remain open.

"This system now stinks quite frankly," State Senator Jeff Klein said.

State Senators Jeff Klein and Diane Savino are now proposing legislation that would create a letter grade system for city day cares, similar to how New York restaurants are graded with signs posted in their front windows.

"You are seeing the proliferation on every block, in every storefront around the city of these daycare centers, and it begs the question, how safe are they?" Klein said.

Day care inspection records can be found online, but the senators say they are difficult for parents to get to. The senators showed a video, where daycare officials repeatedly lied to undercover parents about having a good track record when actual numbers painted a very different picture.

"A lot of working families in New York City are not getting access to safe, quality child care," Savino said.

At less than 4 months old, little Karl Towndrow died in July during his very first day at SoHo Child Care. The cause of death is still unclear, but the center was unlicensed and no one on staff had proper medical training when they found Karl unresponsive. Thursday, his father backed the plan.

"It's important that these day care centers be held to safety standards in an open way," said Lee Towndrow, Karl's father.

At the Brightside Academy, the director was seemingly blindsided by the news and had no comment.

"If we actually provide information about how clean or sanitary someone's local eatery is, we should have the same type of service for something as important as where we put our children," Klein said.

Everywhere else in the state, day cares are required to post their inspection reports, but New York City, under Mayor Bloomberg, took itself out of that bill a few years ago.

Thursday, the Health Department said it will review this latest proposal, adding that it has closed dozens of unpermitted centers in recent years and just started a new unit this year specifically to address these kinds of safety issues.

"There's nothing more important than the safety of our children. We have a robust inspection process in place, with publicly accessible resources on specific daycare sites for parents. We will review this proposal," the Health Department said in a statement.

Read the full report: https://www.nysenate.gov/sites/default/files/hidden_dangers_of_day_care_report.pdf

Watch the undercover video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2B90qWecIqLRWRFZElzQlJBU2c/view