NEW YORK — Parents will soon be able to tell how safe their child care facility is by looking at a simple score card, the mayor announced Friday.
By the summer of 2017, the Department of Health will require all of the city's 2,300 licensed child care centers to post a Child Care Performance Summary Card by its entrances.
The cards will not have letter grades, but will provide information including the number of children allowed in care, the number of times the program has been suspended and the number of Health Code violations issued compared to the citywide average.
“Providing parents with up-to-date, easily accessible information about the safety of the City’s childcare centers has been a priority for my administration,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said. “The Child Care Performance Summary Card is our latest effort to ensure that parents get information that is not only readily accessible, but also easy to understand.”
The DOH did not immediately respond to questions regarding how often the child care centers are required to be inspected, or how often the summary cards are updated.
► READ MORE: How to check if your day care is licensed and has a good safety record
The new card system comes after a year-long negotiation with State Senator Jeff Klein, who called on the city to adopt a letter grade system for child care facilities after he and State Sen. Diane Savino released an investigative report in November 2015 titled “The Hidden Dangers in Day Care.”
The report found 18,102 violations were issued to the city's 2,271 group day care centers between 2013 and 2015.
Parents have long complained about the confusing system for regulating city child cares, some of which are regulated by the city and some by the state. Making things more confusing, each maintains violation informationin two separate databases — and until now, daycares hadn't been legally required to display that information.
The city's new system is a good start to addressing the health and safety issues facing kids in day care, Klein said.
“This performance card will alert parents and guardians to the crucial facts they need to know before they decide if they want to place their children in the care of a facility,” he said.
“I've long worked on day care safety issues and believe that this information posted prominently will help keep our children safe," he added.
