Hundreds of day care and child care centers closed throughout 2013, mainly because the business was not profitable.
Childcare 2-1-1 reports that of those who closed, 14 percent of those surveyed say they closed because they faced the possibility of the state Department of Public Health taking away their license.
Licensing through the DPH is meant to ensure that children in child care programs are safe. However, a recent federal audit found that licensed programs still have safety issues, in part, because of infrequent inspections. Some centers whose licenses had recently been renewed were still found by federal auditors to be unsafe. The governor has proposed a bill that aims to tackle this issue by requiring day care centers to be inspected annually rather than once every three years.
See the other reasons the 510 child care programs closed last year by clicking here.
Jacqueline was CT Mirror’s Education and Housing Reporter, and an original member of the CT Mirror staff, joining shortly before our January 2010 launch. Her awards include the best-of-show Theodore A. Driscoll Investigative Award from the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists in 2019 for reporting on inadequate inmate health care, first-place for investigative reporting from the New England Newspaper and Press Association in 2020 for reporting on housing segregation, and two first-place awards from the National Education Writers Association in 2012. She was selected for a prestigious, year-long Propublica Local Reporting Network grant in 2019, exploring a range of affordable and low-income housing issues. Before joining CT Mirror, Jacqueline was a reporter, online editor and website developer for The Washington Post Co.’s Maryland newspaper chains. Jacqueline received an undergraduate degree in journalism from Bowling Green State University and a master’s in public policy from Trinity College.
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