Minnesota sees increase in reports of children left alone in daycare

Stories of children left unsupervised in Minnesota child care providers appear almost weekly in state investigative reports.

Child care workers in Rochester and Montrose left 2-year-olds unattended on playgrounds, according to documents posted in mid-July. A memo the week before described how a 3-year-old slipped through an unlocked gate at a St. Paul center and walked onto University Avenue. Reports released earlier this month described how a toddler and preschooler were briefly left alone in classrooms at Brooklyn Park and Chaska.

Such incidents have increased recently, the Minnesota Department of Human Services warns. The agency issued an alert this month urging daycare centers to take precautions, such as offering more staff training and conducting more frequent checks on employee attendance.

“Oversight is an important part of ensuring the health and safety of children, allowing staff to intervene in potentially dangerous situations,” DHS Deputy Inspector General Alyssa Dotson said in a statement.

Reports of unaccompanied children often end the same way: the child is quickly found, unharmed, in a classroom or outside.

However, lack of supervision can put a child in danger and is a contributing factor to some daycare centers and childcare organizations losing their licenses.

The DHS warning this month focused on child care centers, which the state is responsible for investigating. People have filed more reports recently of children leaving such centers without the knowledge of staff or being left unsupervised in playgrounds, classrooms, hallways, bathrooms and community settings, officials warned.

According to DHS data from the past six months, an average of nearly 16 reports of potential neglect in child care centers, such as lack of supervision, are filed for investigation each month.

That is an increase of 38% compared to the average of the previous six months.

Why is the number of reports increasing?

According to Dotson, DHS has not yet determined why there have been so many cases in such a short period of time. He said there could be multiple factors contributing to the incidents, including the arrival of summer.

Summer often brings a lot of changes to child care, says Ann McCully, executive director of Child Care Aware of Minnesota, an organization that trains child care providers and helps families find child care.

There may be new hires and reorganization of classes to meet increased demand, and more time spent outdoors or on field trips, she said. That could mean staff members are less familiar with children, increasing the potential for missed numbers.

McCully and others stress that child care staffing shortages are likely exacerbating the problem.

“It’s another symptom of the fact that we don’t have the workforce that we need,” she said. “They have to find people quickly. There’s a lot of turnover, so the opportunity (for) deeper training that we would all like to see — including, I’m sure, the directors of the center — may not always be there.”

The state should promote the field and offer early childhood education classes to high school students. It should also expedite background checks for people who want to work at centers, said Jodie Riek, vice president of the Minnesota Association for the Education of Young Children.

Center directors report that it can take DHS three months to conduct a background check, Riek said. And in rural communities, she said, potential employees must drive long distances to be fingerprinted and photographed for the studies.

In addition to staffing shortages, providers are also seeing more children with behavioral issues than before the pandemic, said Courtney Greiner, owner of Esko Minis Child Care and Preschool and leader of the advocacy group Kids Count on Us.

“These teachers are just taking on so much responsibility and doing things that I really don’t think people who have never done it before can even understand,” she said. “We’re asking them to do impossible things, and then mistakes are made at the expense of safety and supervision.”

Her center had an incident a few years ago when a child hid behind an outdoor toy after a count was done and was missed when the rest of the class went inside, she said. The teacher saw the child on the playground and the center itself reported the situation to licensing authorities and retrained staff, Greiner said. Providers are “devastated” when something like that happens, she said.

Risk Reduction Plans

Child care workers should be aware of the increased risk during transition times, such as when a classroom moves outdoors, and busy times of day when parents and other visitors open the entry doors, DHS noted in its alert. The agency said providers should develop procedures to regularly record attendance throughout the day, especially during high-risk times such as field trips or before and after transitions.

The challenges with transitions are documented in DHS abuse investigations, such as reviews of Tutor Time centers. That company recently came under investigation for reports of unaccompanied children at both its Lakeville and Brooklyn Park locations. Staff at those locations did not respond to requests for comment.

At the Brooklyn Park location, two staff members — one of whom was new — described an “overwhelming” process of getting 11 children ready to go outside, and how an 18-month-old was accidentally left in the classroom for six minutes. In Lakeville, a 3-year-old used a classroom bathroom for several minutes without staff knowing, while the rest of the group was in the playground.

Daycare workers must be able to see and hear a child at all times so they can intervene to protect the child’s health and safety, according to state law. There are some exceptions, such as when children of a certain age use the bathroom or take items from a locker or cabinet with the knowledge of a staff member.

When someone reports a provider’s noncompliance, it triggers an investigation into maltreatment, which can result in the employee being disqualified from providing such services. Often, records show that DHS will warn an employee that he or she will be disqualified if he or she is responsible for future substantiated maltreatment and issue a correction order for the facility.

In the recent alert to providers, state officials stressed that daycare centers also need risk-reduction plans. The plans must assess and address risks surrounding supervision, naptime, food allergies and many other situations. State lawmakers recently updated the requirements for those plans: Starting Aug. 1, centers must add specific procedures to ensure adequate supervision when a toddler uses a single-person restroom at a center.

“A strong risk mitigation plan is essential to prevent injuries and ensure children are supervised,” Dotson said.