Daycares are a lifeline for families in the United States, as over 62% have parents who both work. The industry is heavily regulated, with guidelines for safety, emergencies, and procedures stipulated by states and penalties enforced. With such oversight, parents should feel comfortable about leaving their children with daycares before going off to work. However, a November 8, 2021, collision between a bus operated by The Children’s Courtyard, a for-profit daycare center that transports small children to schools, and cars stopped at a stoplight raises questions about how safe kids really are.
The facts about the incident are well-known and established by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services and the Texas Department of Health and Human Services. The driver of The Children’s Courtyard bus, Kassandra Hutchins, was transporting five children between 4-9 years old to their schools despite the fact that she hadn’t received the minimum training mandated by Texas law. While driving, Hutchins received a text from The Children’s Courtyard Director Jennifer McLemore, who asked Hutchins about a child who had been left behind in the center’s parking lot.
McLemore was unable to text the non-driving adult on the bus, Chelsy Millian, because she didn’t have her phone number and the phone assigned for use on the bus wasn’t working and hadn’t been fixed yet.
After reading the text from McLemore, Hutchins, the driver, turned her eyes from the road to check the bus for the missing child. As she did, she simultaneously accelerated from 37 mph to 39 mph (as shown on the airbag control module) and did not see that the cars in front of her had stopped for a red light. She slammed into the car in front of her, causing, as one child later put it, her young passengers to “almost hit the ceiling.”
Accidents happen. Very few of us get through life without being in one and, admittedly, causing one. However, any empathy for the driver is diminished when you learn that while The Children’s Courtyard’s bus was fitted with seatbelts, many children were not wearing them at the time of the collision. The unwritten policy was that both the bus driver and the supervisor would perform a two-point check: they would observe that the seatbelts were fastened and also tug on it to make sure it was properly fastened. Only then would the bus begin to move. This didn’t happen – instead, Millian asked if the children were buckled, the children said yes, and no walkthrough or physical check was performed.
The collision broke both legs of one child and caused head injuries among other children as well as Millian and Hutchins. While the victims waited for emergency medical personnel, bystanders who had witnessed the accident helped children offload from the bus and make it to safety on the sidewalk. A woman who was four months pregnant and had been in the car hit by the bus also helped the children. With kids screaming and crying for their parents, the scene was chaotic.
This raises the question of The Children’s Courtyard’s employees, who could be forgiven for being shaken up but who still had their own responsibilities as caregivers for the children that were in their charge. Witnesses state that they largely did not help the kids and instead stood off to the side on their own. Also concerning is the fact that most children could not call their parents because in violation of Texas law, employees of The Children’s Courtyard did not have a list of parents’ names, telephone numbers, and emergency telephone numbers for each child.
So, at this point, there were two primary issues with the daycare: a bus driver who was not properly trained to do her job and the inability of caregivers to contact families when an emergency struck.
Now the response of The Children’s Courtyard to the accident is being scrutinized. With driver inattention and questionable policies established, the daycare and its parent company, The Learning Care Group, tried to escape responsibility.
It has been ascertained by investigators that Hutchins and McLemore discussed which information would be shared or withheld. They misled parents about the accident and the status of their children, saying that they were not injured when they had, in fact, been harmed. They also withheld relevant information from police and state investigators.
Arguably most concerning was their attempt to shift blame onto Jon Kennedy, one of the Good Samaritans who helped the children after the accident. Hutchins and McLemore stated that Kennedy had stopped suddenly, but his car had already been stopped for 45-60 seconds by the time the collision occurred.
The Children’s Courtyard also did not conduct a thorough investigation of the crash and refused to conduct drug and alcohol testing on Hutchins, the driver. Witnesses report not being contacted by the daycare for their testimony about what happened.
Again, while the aftermath of any accident, especially one that involves children, can be frightening and disorienting, the wrongdoer is still expected to cooperate with investigations to their completion.
The State of Texas conducted its own investigation and interviewed witnesses and the Children’s Courtyard’s leadership and employees. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services ultimately found that the children had been the victims of neglectful supervision by The Children’s Courtyard. The Texas Department of Health and Human Services issued the results of its own investigation, leading to numerous minimum standard violations against the daycare. In addition to a $1,000 administrative penalty, The Children’s Courtyard was required to post a notice on the door of its Six Pines location that said it was on probation for “repeated violation of minimum standards, rules, or other relevant laws.”
These were all good steps, as was the requirement that the daycare hold an employee meeting about why the business was facing corrective action and what could have been done differently.
Remember, however, that at this point, the director of The Children’s Courtyard, McLemore, had not disclosed to investigators that she had been texting with the driver right before the collision, contacted any witnesses, spoken to Hutchins about the incident, or read her statement about the incident. How effective, then, could these corrective actions be?
While it is true that the majority of daycares in the United States are run ethically and in compliance with U.S. regulations, it is troubling how easy it is for centers to skirt the rules when employees run behind schedule. Perhaps what daycares ultimately need is more independent review to make sure that when we drop off our children each morning, we can trust that they really will be just fine.
