Padding Writeups

When you become a target of Childcare Licensing, the Department will go through great lengths to discredit you and make it appear as if you are a danger to children. Few people expect for a Department charged with protecting children to be so unethical and that is why they are so successful using this strategy. People that have never experienced this behavior or are unaware that the Department uses this strategy when targeting daycare operators further victimize those daycare operators (as well as their staff and the children in their care) by siding with the Department, often very vocally. I compare these people to mindless villagers chasing after the so-called villain with torches and pitchforks in horror movies of old.

A great clue as to when the Department is targeting a daycare is if the daycare has received frequent inspections from childcare licensing. The Department will use the guise of stating that a "report" was made against the daycare forcing them to investigate or that they were merely "following up" on a previous investigation.  State law states that a person can make anonymous "reports" on daycares (and individuals for that matter). The Department is able to simply state that a report was made, even when it wasn't, to justify harassing daycare operators and give the Department the opportunity to pad (increase) the number of deficiencies.

A further indicator as to the intentions of the Department when they are targeting a daycare operator is the length of time that their representatives are at the daycare. If a Childcare Licensing Representative is following up on a previous visit or investigating a report, it does not make sense for a representative to be present at that daycare for more than an hour and a half. We once had a childcare licensing representative named Veronica Lopez present at our daycare for a period of 7 hours! The daycare ran so smoothly that she felt compelled to falsify write-ups including stating that fire ants were crawling all over her when a professional exterminator acknowledged that there were no ants on the property.

The Department is also successful in padding write-ups as a result of how they put the wording into the deficiencies. For example, a caregiver who is changing the diaper of an infant while another infant is feeding themselves in a high chair, while a third infant is asleep in a crib. The State mandated ratio is 4:1 so the ratio would be easily met. Imagine that the child eating the food drops their spoon on the floor. A childcare Licensing Representative who is targeting the daycare will write-up the daycare for the spoon being on the floor but will neglect to include in their report that the caregiver was changing the diaper and that the daycare was easily in ratio. To pad the write-ups even more, the Childcare Licensing Representative will state that as a result of this writeup the Daycare Operator was not adhering to the State of Texas Minimum Standards. This deficiency is a huge red flag that the Department is padding write-ups as the gist of this deficiency is that a daycare operator is receiving a deficiency for getting a deficiency!

There is also an example of a Childcare Licensing Representative writing up the daycare for there being food on the floor in a toddler room without mentioning in her report that the toddlers were having a scheduled meal at the time and that it is normal behavior for children of that age to get food on the floor while they are eating!

It is widely known that children that are just let out of school have a tendency to want to blow off steam. School age children tend to get excited and want to play. Sometimes there are so many children in your care that you have to increase the volume of your voice to ensure that the children are under control. There is a difference between raising your voice and yelling at children. Yelling at  children is something that is done in a fit of anger. What Childcare Licensing Representatives will do is writeup the daycare for a caregiver yelling at children when there was never any yelling involved. You can provide other witnesses including the children that will refute what the Childcare Licensing Representative writes in their report but doing so risks retaliation.

Because School Age children are excited to be out of school they will want to have fun and play games. We had a Childcare Licensing Representative named Christina Cantu who not only threatened to write us up for offering too many activities for the children (not just school age children) but wrote us up because the School Age children did not return the games in an organized manner. This by the way is not a violation according to the State of Texas Minimum Standards by which daycare centers operate.

I was told by one daycare operator that her daycare was given a deficiency by a Childcare Licensing Representative because one of her staff reached out of her room to get a spray bottle. It was not surprising to find that it was Geneva Hudel, the Heinrich Himmler to Adrienne Driggers, who cited her for supposedly leaving the room even though it was only a portion of her arm!

We were once written up by a Childcare Licensing Representative named Pam Hayes in San Antonio when a 3 year old child placed her snack on a bare table instead of the paper plate that she had been given. When I stated to her that she had to be kidding as the deficiency was so absurd she responded by stating: "Mr. Gonzales, I have to write you up for something?!"

This led me to a question that I asked Geneva Hudel in her first visit to our daycare. I asked her if Childcare Licensing Representatives were seen with a suspicious eye by their supervisors if they returned to their offices after having driven around all day inspecting daycares without many write-ups for the daycares. I asked her if they had a quota system. She replied that they did have a quota system and were treated as if they were not doing their jobs if they did not return with many write-ups.

Of course one could challenge the falsified deficiencies by using Administrative Reviews. Which you may remember are informal hearings where you cannot question the Childcare Licensing Representative that falsified the deficiency(ies), nor can you question any person that supposedly filed a report against you or challenge any evidence. These informal hearings are held by a co-worker within the same office as the person whose deficiencies you are challenging.

One would think that daycare operators are protected under the United States Constitution's 6th Amendment Confrontation Clause which reads: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to be confronted with the witnesses against him. The 14th Amendment has made the 6th Amendment’s right to confrontation applicable to state court as well as federal court. The confrontation clause guarantees criminal defendants the opportunity to face the prosecution’s witnesses in the case against them and dispute the witnesses’ testimony. This guarantee applies to both statements made in court and statements made outside of court that are offered as evidence during trial.

The problem is that daycare operators are not afforded this Constitutional right in Administrative Hearings despite the substance of the hearings being identical to that of criminal proceedings. The State Office of Adminstrative Hearings will use the findings from the Administrative Reviews against daycare operators in making their decisions against daycare operators.