Thousands of children in South Carolina attend day care centers that are not regulated by the state.
That's because the long list of rules imposed on most mom-and-pop and chain child care centers don't apply to kindergarten or nursery programs that operate four hours or less per day. Shopping center child care, school vacation and holiday camps, and summer resident camps also are exempt from laws designed to protect the health and safety of children.
While church-affiliated centers and small home-based centers must be registered with the state, they are not required to have a license, and the state can't inspect these facilities unless it receives a complaint.
Home centers caring for fewer than six children are not regulated by the state and do not require licenses.
Nancy Murray, owner and director of Miss Nancy's Happy Hours Day Care in Dorchester County, said every business with responsibility for children should be subject to the same scrutiny. "None of these people are licensed in the way I have to be licensed," she said. "The cost that's put on me isn't what's being put on them. If they're going to change laws for day care, then they need to look into people who are running school care."
This lack of state oversight offers parents little assurance about the quality of the people watching their children, said Shannon Erickson, who owns Hobbit Hill day care centers in Beaufort County and recently won election to the Legislature. "Families are not aware that these places are not checked out by anyone," she said.
The state runs the names of people applying to work in licensed child care centers through a state database that tracks cases of child abuse and neglect. Since the state Department of Social Services began tracking "hits" in July, it already has flagged five applicants listed in the database.
The state moved to close two home care centers this year after officials learned that people living in those homes were listed in the child abuse and neglect database.
Marie Darstein, director of government relations for the Sunshine House chain of day care centers, said people barred from working in licensed child care because of convictions for child abuse or other crimes could still gain access to children by applying to an unregulated business.
"When we first started doing criminal background checks and child abuse registry checks, we would get a lot of hits with people with blemishes on their record," she said. "Now, we don't get as many. Where are these people going?"
Home-based centers caring for fewer than six children can voluntarily become licensed, but of nearly 1,500 home-based facilities in South Carolina, only 16 have opted to become licensed and subject to state regulations and inspections.
A state task force that studied child care in 2004 recommended that home care providers receive more scrutiny, including unannounced site visits from state inspectors.
Child care experts say home-based care fills a critical need in rural areas that can't support larger centers. Some fear that imposing stricter standards on these smaller centers would force many to close their doors because they would need to make costly improvements.
Children under 2 years of age might actually be better off in a home setting rather than in larger centers, some research shows.
But when child care providers operate with little state oversight, warning signs that children are at risk may go unnoticed.
Andrea Person, who cared for several unrelated children at her Richland County home, faces criminal charges stemming from the deaths of three children, the most recent occurring in April. Person continued to care for children in her home after her state registration lapsed in 2005.