As parents picked up their children from The Baltimore Montessori day care center on Friday, July 28, they were handed a letter – announcing an immediate emergency closure of the facility.
Now, after two weeks of parents scrambling to find temporary daycare, the Locust Point facility opens on Tuesday. Some parents say the closure never should have happened in the first place.
The state’s Office of Child Care conducted three inspections of the daycare center in late July after receiving an anonymous complaint about overcapacity issues ten days before the center shut down. During each visit, the inspector found classrooms with too many children or too little staff to meet state requirements.
According to the official notice letter from State Superintendent Mohammed Choudhury, sent to WYPR by a Montessori parent, the emergency license suspension was “required to protect the health, safety, or welfare of a child.”
But Abby Zalis, whose 1-year-old attends the daycare, said the state closure was an “overreaction.”
“You get this letter like, ‘We had to shut down because of the safety of your kids,’ and we’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, did they do an inspection today and find out that they’re serving the kids bleach or something?” Zalis said. “And only to find out that three days ago, they did an inspection. Like that was three days ago. If our kids were in such danger, why weren’t they shut down three days ago?”
According to the state’s inspection report, some classrooms had one teacher caring for nearly 20 children. The state requires two teachers to be in a room with more than 10 three-to-five-year-olds, or more than eight children under the age of two.
“If one teacher calls out, then they just don’t have a substitute staff to cover it,” Zalis said, leaving rooms over capacity.
