A loose pill. Pet urine on the floor. Dog feces on the deck. Unexplained “self-inflicted” injuries. A bottle of wood glue and six-inch screws in a play area. A loose bullet. Guns waved around in front of children. A child found in a ditch on the side of the road.

Those are just a few of the problems recorded by regulators visiting child care providers around the state, according to an analysis of thousands of records reviewed by The Maine Monitor and the Center for Public Integrity. 

In one report, following a 2022 visit to Cribs to Crayons in Bradford, half an hour northwest of Bangor, inspectors wrote that children witnessed a provider shove a child against a wall and hit their head “loud enough for others to hear.”

Two years later, inspectors visited again, and found many of the same issues: children reported that they had been locked out alone outside, hit and grabbed by the chin, “body slam[med]” and thrown against cribs and to the ground.

The provider was found by inspectors to have yelled profanity and had been seen by other children spanking her own child and washing their mouth out with soap, an incident she later confirmed to regulators. 

Since August of 2021, Cribs to Crayons has been inspected by the state 21 times and cited for 48 violations. 

Courtney-Jo Arrants, the owner of Cribs to Crayons, denies the allegations and said she has since installed security monitoring cameras.

“If I left all these bumps and bruises on these kids, then where’s the photos of it? Where’s the video? Where’s the doctor’s visit?” said Arrants. According to state inspection reports reviewed by The Monitor and Public Integrity, investigators spoke to children at the program who confirmed the incidents. 

Cribs to Crayons was issued a conditional license, which requires providers to follow a “directed plan of action,” a formal order with specific regulations or standards that must be met before a full license can be issued. 

Cribs to Crayons’ conditional license and directed plan of action, issued in January 2024 and valid for one year, required a variety of corrections, including that Arrants complete training on “positive and constructive methods of Child guidance” within 30 days and to “ensure only constructive methods of Child guidance are used,” and not subject any children to “an action or practice detrimental to the welfare of Children,” including “corporal punishment, shaming and embarrassing, humiliating or verbally abusing a Child.” 

Cribs to Crayons was also required to post the conditional license and letter from the state “in public view,” and Arrants was ordered to be evaluated by a “qualified professional” within 30 days to determine whether she was able to safely care for children. Regulators temporarily reduced her licensed capacity to six children, instead of 12.

Cribs to Crayons’ conditional license was removed in August after inspectors determined Arrants had come into compliance with state rules; the daycare is now fully licensed until August 2026. 

The Maine Monitor and the Center for Public Integrity reviewed more than 6,000 available inspection reports for 1,481 of the state’s more than 1,500 child care providers across Maine and found that providers have been repeatedly relicensed after multiple reported transgressions, which vary from missing immunization records to leaving children unsupervised. (The data analyzed includes 1,527 providers; those without inspection reports on the website were not included in the analysis.)

Since 2021, the state has not revoked a single child care license, despite reports confirmed by inspectors of facilities losing children and not realizing they were gone, piles of garbage so high they blocked exits, and firearms waved in front of children. 

While DHHS has not revoked a license since at least 2021, it has voided conditional licenses or denied licenses for twelve facilities during their renewal process, for reasons ranging from missing immunization records and inaccurate attendance to reports of providers withholding food, shaming children or using derogatory remarks. 

Since 2021, the 1,481 facilities have been cited for over 16,000 total violations; in that same timeframe, none has faced a fine. 

“Licensing Action coupled with increased technical assistance and support has proven to be an effective strategy for compliance with regulations, whereas fines represent a punitive action that does not have the benefit of support from Licensing Specialists,” said Lindsay Hammes, the press secretary for DHHS in an email in response to the department’s ability to issue fines.

"It is awful that we are still having this conversation," said Senator Jeff Timberlake of District 17, who has been outspoken on child welfare issues, and who is a member of the government oversight committee.

Regulators faced fierce criticism from lawmakers after a series of incidents at a child care in Lyman became public a decade ago in which inspectors found that the co-owner slammed a child to the floor, pulled chairs out from under other children and forced children to put soap in their mouths.

The child care, Sunshine Child Care & Preschool, was open for months before being granted a conditional license. It later closed after parents pulled their children, according to a series of reports in the Portland Press Herald.

"This falls deep into the administration's hand. They need to have a hard conversation and figure out why this continues to happen,” said Timberlake. “This is what leads to dead children."

Maine faces child care crisis

Maine, like much of the nation, is facing a child care crisis. The number of providers statewide has decreased by 23 percent in the past decade — from over 1,800 in 2013 to over 1,500 in 2024, a drop that has been particularly acute in rural areas.

The need for infant care is acute, with roughly 5,000 infant child care spots for the 10,000 to 12,000 babies born each year. Waitlists for care can stretch for years.

Experts attribute the rapid decline in child care providers in large part to the pandemic, when staff became reluctant to be exposed to the germs commonly found in child care facilities and sought higher-paying jobs in other industries. 

Child care experts said many of the problems outlined in inspection reports could be attributed in part to staffing difficulties, as providers have struggled to compete for skilled staff as wages have risen elsewhere or have struggled to maintain enough staff for proper ratios. 

A daycare can only raise fees so much before it starts losing families, who are often spending more on child care than they do on housing: annual costs for full-time care in Maine average between $8,580 for an infant to $11,960 for a toddler, according to Child Care Aware, which tracks costs nationwide. Many families spend much more than that.

“The fact is, you cannot run a quality program at all for family fees. You just can’t. We know that having one child in child care can be as much as your mortgage,” said Roy Fowler, acting director of Maine Roads to Quality Professional Development Network, a voluntary credentialing program.

The state has pumped money into the system, including $15 million for funding and technical assistance to help launch or expand child care programs, including renovating facilities and increasing enrollment. Maine also has a “salary supplement system” for eligible providers to supplement wages; the program receives more than $30 million in state funds each year.

Earlier this year, officials announced that they would increase reimbursement rates for child care programs that participate in the Child Care Affordability Program, which helps eligible families pay for child care. The greatest increase in the new reimbursement rates, which went into effect in July, will go to more rural and lower-income counties.

Retaining staff while keeping costs affordable for families has meant some facilities are relying on a workforce that is not as highly skilled as it might be if wages were higher, said Heather Marden, the co-executive director of the Maine Association for the Education of Young Children.

“When you are barely keeping your head above water with staff, you don’t have the luxury to work in quality, right? You’re only doing what's needed to keep things running,” said Fowler.

Firearms, missing children 

In state inspection reports, violations are not classified by type or severity. Reports consist of a checklist of different violations along with an “inspection results” page where regulators can provide more detailed descriptions of specific transgressions.

To differentiate between administrative issues and incidents that could endanger a child’s health or welfare, The Monitor and Public Integrity developed a system that classifies violations as “safety violations” or “procedural violations.”

Safety violations include physical altercations such as hitting, shoving, dragging or slapping; severe unsanitary conditions; yelling or using derogatory remarks; a lack of supervision; or issues involving guns or ammunition, among others.

Procedural violations include missing or incomplete records; failure to follow guidelines; or the lack of emergency contact information on file.

The Monitor and Public Integrity’s analysis found almost 4,000 safety violations at child care facilities around the state between the beginning of 2021 and July of this year. State inspections must be publicly available for three years.

These incidents range from physical and verbal altercations to inadequate supervision, children running away unnoticed, severe sanitation problems and failure to report incidents to parents or the department. Of these violations, more than 130 involved physical or verbal altercations. 

Maine has roughly 18 licensing specialists who work under the Office of Child and Family Services, a division within the Department of Health and Human Services that oversees licensing and inspections, and who are tasked with visiting all providers at least annually for an unannounced inspection. That’s more than the number of inspectors the state had a decade ago, when the facility in Lyman came under scrutiny.

Reports from inspections are publicly available online. Providers are also tasked with filling out incident reports for their own records as a way to formally document alleged transgressions for parents and the state to review.

Outside the annual inspection, regulators may also conduct investigations into specific complaints, interviewing staff, children and parents and reviewing video camera footage to determine whether a complaint is founded. 

If a complaint is found to have merit after an investigation, regulators have several options. If inspectors feel conditions “immediately endanger the health or safety of children,” according to state licensing rules, regulators may request an emergency license suspension from the District Court.

If conditions exist that “jeopardize the health and safety of children,” regulators can suspend the program’s license for up to 10 days, pending further investigation.

Regulators may also issue a conditional license and a directed plan of action specifying what actions a provider must take and in what timeframe. The state can also issue fines.

In reviewing state inspection reports, The Monitor and Public Integrity found thirteen incidents in which guns, pellet guns, rifles, or pellets were found by state inspectors on the premises of child care programs around the state.

Several facilities were found to have unsecured ammunition or guns and ammunition stored together. Family-based providers are allowed to keep firearms on the property provided they are properly stored; center-based facilities are not allowed to keep firearms on the premises. 

In one instance, at Tender Hearts child care in Sabattus, a household member “waved a rifle style-BB gun in front of four children, while yelling profanity and making threats against the provider,” according to state records. No incident report was ever completed.

The inspection report notes that the provider did not file a report when police came to the facility because of an incident involving a family member. The department was only made aware of these incidents after investigating following a complaint. 

The state investigations led the department to issue a directed plan of action, requiring Tender Hearts to “demonstrate a willingness and ability to operate and manage” the child care with “mature judgment, compassionate regard for the best interest of the children,” document all accidents, injuries, and incidents when they occur, and ensure that a parent or guardian reviews and signs the document. The plan also requires the provider to make sure all household members have complete background checks. 

Tender Hearts was required to make all corrections immediately and to place the plan in public view; the department stated they would perform unannounced follow-ups to ensure compliance. 

In another instance, in 2023, regulators found that owner Crystal O’Connor left three children under the age of two with her then-15-year-old daughter to attend appointments on two separate occasions.

Tender Hearts is operating under a full license that will expire in January of 2025. 

O’Connor told The Monitor and Public Integrity that her son had brought the rifle style-BB gun into her home and waved it in front of the children. She said she has since filed a restraining order against him.

At Roots to Grow in Waterville, inspectors visiting found severe clutter and unsanitary conditions on more than 15 occasions, including piles of garbage and debris that were so high — up to four and five feet, in some cases — that they were blocking exits, according to the report. 

The clutter was so bad during an inspection in September of 2022 that the inspector sent the children home “due to the dangerous conditions.” Roots to Grow has been cited for almost 50 safety violations over the past three years, compared to Kennebec County’s average of about two per child care center. 

Roots to Grow was operating under a conditional license until September of this year when state regulators issued a full license that is valid until 2026.

The Monitor and Public Integrity made multiple attempts to contact Roots to Grow via phone call and text messages and left numerous voicemail messages. The child care program could not be reached for comment.

Farther east, a child care program in Trenton, a small town just outside Acadia National Park, has been repeatedly cited over the years for dozens of violations, several of which have been outlined in news reports. 

Staff at Tiny Tikes told inspectors they were “not allowed to comfort or hug a crying child,” and that they were told to ignore crying children and lay them down in another room. A training manual lists children as “perps” and “criminals,” and inspectors found that a firearm was brought into the child care and not reported.

Tiny Tikes accounts for more than 27 percent of Hancock County's total safety violations.

Tiny Tikes owner Betsey Grant denies the allegations. “If you believe [my inspection reports], I wouldn’t leave myself with myself after reading what my record looks like.”

In Ellsworth, the Down East Family YMCA Early Learning Center on General Moore Way has been written up for violations relating to children being left unsupervised or wandering away without staff noticing seven times since 2021.

The facility did not report to the department on four occasions when staff were allegedly rough handling and dragging children across the room, according to state records, incidents that were discovered after the state conducted a complaint investigation. The facility has been issued four conditional licenses since December of 2021.

“We have invested in additional oversight staff,” said Down East’s chief executive officer Matt Montgomery. “We meet with [our licensor] monthly to ensure we are on the right track and make positive changes.”

Both located in Hancock County, Tiny Tikes and Downeast Family YMCA Early Learning Center combined account for nearly half of all safety violations in the county, which has a total of 57 licensed child care providers. 

At Driscoll Child Development Center in Portland, an inspection report from January of 2023 describes concerns of “inappropriate child management” and staff “smacking” a preschooler and grabbing children by the wrist. The same report recounts an incident in which a staff member rough-handled a four-month-old, reportedly resulting in a broken arm.

According to state records, staff did not fill out incident reports for all occasions and were unable to confirm if parents were notified. Since opening its doors in 2020, Driscoll Child Development Center has repeatedly been cited for safety violations and accounts for roughly 10 percent of the 700 safety violations in Cumberland County.

Since August 2021, Driscoll has been cited more than 100 times for both safety and procedural violations. The child care program is in the process of renewing its license but has been operating under a conditional license since June of 2023.

The Monitor and Public Integrity contacted Driscoll's Child Development Center multiple times through phone calls and emails and left numerous voicemail messages. The owner could not be reached for comment.

Aroostook County, which is home to roughly 80 child care providers, has significantly more safety violations per child care provider on average, about seven, than other counties do.

The state’s average is about three per child care provider. Within Aroostook County, Kurioucity Child Care in Blaine accounts for more than 10 percent of all safety violations. ​​Kurioucity Child Care had been operating under a conditional license until May of 2023 when it was issued a full license which expires in 2025. 

The Monitor and Public Integrity reached out through phone calls. Kurioucity Child Care’s voicemail is not accepting new messages. The child care program could not be reached for comment.

Many providers in Maine are constantly on the brink of going out of business, said Rebecca Alfredson, director of education at United Way of Southern Maine, and do not have the time or resources to attend additional training aimed at improving the quality of care.

Several providers, including Arrants, the owner of Cribs to Crayons, also said the state’s inspection is extensive. “It’s an inspection of everything. Every kid’s file even if I’ve had them for six years.” Arrants and Tiny Tikes owner Betsey Grant said they felt targeted.

“Writing us up for things that different licensors wouldn’t have written us up for — that’s one of the things that we deal with that makes a lot of people just not want to do it anymore,” said Arrants.

Others, however, disagreed.

Sasha Shunk, the owner of Shunk Child Care in Portland and the chair of the outreach committee for the Family Child Care Association of Maine, said it shouldn’t be hard to keep up with regulations and pass inspections. Her program has frequently passed inspections or been cited for only minor violations.

“I think they can be overwhelming in the beginning,” said Shunk, “but really, if you work with your licensor and use some of the resources that are out there, it should be okay.”

The vast majority — almost 1,000 — of Maine child care providers had fewer than 10 procedural and 5 safety violations between the start of 2021 and July of this year. More than 400 providers have only procedural violations and 117 have no violations at all.

“I don’t think people go into child care to say, ‘I want to provide poor care to kids’ — that’s never at the heart of the decision,” said Alfredson. “Everyone is in it because they care deeply about children.”

Few consequences, no fines

Despite repeat violations, all of the centers mentioned in this story remain licensed. None has been fined.

Reports obtained by The Monitor reveal that, in many cases, the reasons given for denying or voiding licenses appear similar to issues found in facilities that are still open. 

One program, run by Morgan Angers, was denied license renewal in 2023 for “inappropriate child guidance, withholding food for children, corporal punishment, and children rights violations.” Planet Recess Education Center, in Presque Isle, was denied renewal for reportedly shaming, using derogatory remarks and rough-handling children. 

As of September, four providers —Tiny Tikes, Bangor Region YMCA, Down East Family YMCA Early Learning Center and Robin’s Nest Child Care — were operating under a conditional license.

Since January of 2021 DHHS has issued conditional licenses to 64 child care providers around the state.

Regulators can impose fines of up to $50 per incident for child’s rights violations and up to $500 per incident for transgressions related to child-staff ratio, disclosing confidential information and giving false information to inspectors. 

“While the Department may assess civil penalties when a child care provider fails to comply with applicable laws and licensing regulations, the Department more commonly issues enforcement action, such as issuance of a conditional license,” said a DHHS spokesperson. 

Maine’s regulations do not include daily penalties or escalations for repeat violations, in contrast to nearby New Hampshire, where regulators can impose fines up to $2,000 and add daily penalties for ongoing non-compliance. 

“These are generally very small businesses that are operating on incredibly narrow budgets,” said Rita Furlow, senior policy analyst at Maine Children’s Alliance. “Fining them isn’t necessarily going to solve the problem.”

Parents left in the dark

Providers are required to post the results of inspection reports but are not required to individually notify parents of potential violations or results unless the program is operating under a conditional license.

Several parents expressed frustration with what they saw as a lack of communication from providers and a lack of follow-up from the state.

Nora Davis (whose name has been changed to protect her privacy) told The Monitor her toddler began having problems shortly after he started child care at Jo-Ann’s Children’s Center in York County.

According to Davis, he became afraid of falling asleep alone or having doors shut and would cower in the corner after being told “no” or melt down if his parents left the bathroom. Davis struggled to understand what was happening, and her son, who is autistic and non-verbal, was unable to explain it to her.

Davis spoke to other parents whose children were enrolled at Jo-Ann’s and several told her their kids were exhibiting similar behaviors: that they were afraid to be left alone, particularly in bathrooms, or were running to the corner when they were being disciplined. 

Davis reported her concerns to the Office of Child and Family Services; officials inspected and found that five staff members reported closing children in the bathroom “as a form of discipline.” 

State regulators issued a directed plan of action requiring Jo-Ann’s to “ensure all child care staff members responsible for, or assisting with, the care of children exercise good judgment in the handling of children,” and that they “ensure actions that have a reasonable likelihood to be harmful to children are strictly prohibited.”

The plan did not explicitly state that the child care program should not lock children in the bathroom.

That upset Davis, who said she was also never notified of the state’s findings and was frustrated with what she saw as a lack of follow-up. 

In response to this incident, Kendra Gelardi, the owner of Jo-Ann’s Childcare, declined to comment.

“It’s really something between the state and the daycare,” she said.

According to a Monitor/Public Integrity analysis, child care programs in York County, where Jo-Ann’s child care is located, had an average of about four safety violations between 2021 and 2024. Jo-Ann’s had fifteen, more than most other child care programs in the county.

Morgan Whitcomb, a Belfast-area mother, was similarly frustrated with follow-up after reporting an incident involving her son’s child care, Kids Unplugged, in November of 2021.

Staff told Whitcomb that her son had run off and been found sitting on the grass near the child care. It wasn’t until later that another parent told her what really happened: the father said he had found her son crying in a ditch beside the building, which is sandwiched between Route 1 and the Belfast Municipal Airport.

“I was in such shock, I couldn’t even react because all I could think about was all of the ‘“what ifs,’” said Whitcomb. 

Kids Unplugged self-reported the incident, the details of which are not included in the inspection report. Whitcomb was not provided with any documentation of the incident. The Office of Child and Family Services inspected the facility and an inspector confirmed Whitcomb’s experience. The office issued a plan of action. Kids Unplugged was also put on a conditional license for failing to comply with state rules. 

The inspection found additional violations at Kids Unplugged, including a staff member threatening to spank a child and a video showing the same staff member “shove the child, pick the child up and slam the child down on the sleep mat.” The report also noted that two staff reported witnessing another staff member leave children unattended two to three separate times over the past month on the playground. 

Since the incident, Kids Unplugged has been inspected seven times and inspectors have found only procedural violations, such as missing fire drills. 

“I had to quit my job and pull him out of the daycare because there were no other daycares open to take him,” said Whitcomb.

The Monitor and Public Integrity reached out multiple times through phone calls and left numerous voicemail messages. Kids Unplugged could not be reached for comment.

Several parents told The Monitor they were not made aware that their child’s daycare was on notice from the state.

“I never knew about the conditional [license],” said Whitcomb. “The community heard about [the incident] through word of mouth, but that was it.” 

Other parents said they wanted to be directly notified of any self-reported incidents or any inspection findings from the state. 

“There’s so many papers hanging up inside of a daycare. To be honest with you, as a parent, when I walk in, I wouldn’t notice if [the inspection report] were hanging on the wall,” said Davis.

Hammes, of DHHS, said in an email that “Every complaint or report receives a response, though it may not be in the form of follow-up with the complainant.”

This is in contrast to nearby New Hampshire, where facilities that are issued a conditional license must “immediately provide the department with evidence that the program notified all of the parents of enrolled children of the conditions imposed on the license by the department.” 

“There’s a notice on her door that she failed inspection, and then that was it,” said Davis, “After the violations were posted, I never heard another word again from anyone.”

Hannah Campbell and Lillian Juarez from the Investigative Reporting Workshop contributed to this report.

Methodology & Data: All of the data used came from publicly available documents from the state of Maine in the form of state inspection reports. To learn how The Monitor and Center for Public Integrity created its own database and cleaned the data sourced through the documents, visit the methodology page for this investigation.

This story was originally published by The Maine Monitor, a nonprofit civic news organization. To get regular coverage from the Monitor, sign up for a free Monitor newsletter here.