Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Operators of pre-K programs in NY City have records of health, safety violations, bribes and fraud. NYC Mayor seeks rapid expansion of pre-K programs as fewer than half of existing ones passed renewal this school yr. without issue-NY Daily News

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2/25/14, "Operators of pre-K programs have record of health, safety violations — and corruption," NY Daily News, Greg B. Smith

"A Daily News review of the health inspection records of pre-K programs overseen by the ACS showed that the centers were frequently hit with health and safety violations, and some have even billed the city and state for children that didn't exist."

"The operators of prekindergarten programs across the city have been hit repeatedly with health and safety violations found to be an “imminent threat” to children, a Daily News review has found.

The violations have ranged from peeling lead paint to blocked fire exits. In a handful of cases, operators have been caught ripping off the taxpayers by billing for children who didn’t exist.

The News examined hundreds of health inspection reports for all 359 pre-K programs in the five boroughs overseen by the Administration for Children’s Services — part of a network of 850 pre-K programs operated by community-based organizations.

The review disclosed that one of every five pre-K centers run by the ACS has been cited within the past three months for at least one public health hazard. In Brooklyn and the Bronx, it was even worse — one in four pre-K programs had been cited.

Inspection of current pre-K programs, which rely heavily on community groups to provide services, is overseen by five agencies: the city Health, Education, Buildings and Fire departments and the state Education Department.

As Mayor de Blasio pushes for a rapid and dramatic expansion of pre-K, the city will be under increased pressure to streamline and strengthen that web of oversight.

“If they cannot keep on top of the safety and health violations right now, they’re already starting off in the negative,” said Mona Davids, president of the New York City Parents Union. “That’s a very big problem.” The need to monitor safety is crucial.

Although 40% of pre-K programs are located in city schools, the remainder — which serve 46,000 childrenare run by the community-based organizations, which include churches and yeshivas as well as nonprofit community groups and private companies.

Since the state began funding pre-K in 1997, a steady stream of taxpayer dollars has flowed to these groups. Since the 2008-09 school year, the community-based groups in the city have received some $780 million in taxpayer funds to run pre-K.

The programs are inspected yearly. They also occasionally undergo random checks by the city Health Department. They must have specific teacher-child ratios and provide 30 square feet of space per child. The centers must provide proof that their teachers are certified and that all personnel dealing with children have undergone thorough criminal history checks, including fingerprinting.

Yet dangerous conditions have managed to take root again and again. The most serious violations are public health hazards deemed by the city to “present an imminent threat to the health and safety of children.” They include failing to check the criminal histories of all employees who deal with children, blocked fire exits, peeling lead paint and overcrowded classrooms.

At the Park Place Day Care Center in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, inspectors found four of these “physical hazards” at once, including “inadequate fencing” on a rooftop play area, unprotected food, an uninspected fire extinguisher and a failure to check criminal histories of employees.

Though the city requires programs to fix such violations within one business day, there was no record that they had been corrected. The last inspection took place Dec. 20.

At Coney Island Child Care, inspectors found three hazardous conditions, including no background checks and failure to “provide constant and competent supervision.” Again, there was no record that the problems had been fixed. The last inspection was Jan. 10.

At the Brightside Academy on White Plains Road in the Bronx, inspectors found two hazards, including an “individual associated with child care” who was “involved in an act detrimental to health and safety.” Again, there was no record of correction, with the last inspection dated Feb. 5.

Investigators have also uncovered occasional incidents of corruption and waste.

In September 2012, schools investigator Richard Condon found Nareesa’s Day Care and several affiliated programs called Beanstalk in Queens billed the city $35,000 for nonexistent children it claimed were attending pre-K programs.

One teaching assistant at Beanstalk told investigators how the operators of the sites, Nareesa and Saied Mohammed, padded their bills by forging parents’ signatures. The Education Department ended the contracts.

Many of the city’s pre-K operators also run taxpayer-funded day care for younger children in the same buildings. Investigators have found repeated problems with multiple day care operations.

For several years, Liudmila Umarov ran a pre-K program out of one of her day care centers, Butterfly Day Care Center on Nostrand Ave. in Brooklyn, the Education Department confirmed.

She also ran a string of 25 day care centers across Brooklyn. When investigators showed up at these places, they found a mess: open liquor bottles in the fridge next to kids’ lunches, wires dangling from classroom ceilings and emergency exits blocked or locked.

In 2010, the city discovered Umarov’s corrupt network had for years routinely bribed inspectors to look the other way on unsafe conditions, fabricated “ghost” students to inflate bills and illicitly pocketed $1 million in city and state funds.

Umarov and seven other day center operators were convicted on corruption charges. She was sentenced in May to probation.

Health Department spokesman Levi Fishman said Umarov no longer has ties to Butterfly, which continues to provide pre-K at the same address. He couldn’t say when that affiliation ended.

RELATED: DE BLASIO'S PRE-K PLAN DEMANDS THOUSANDS OF CLASSROOMS, TEACHERS IN SHORT TIME

In some cases, the city has found recurring issues with some groups.

Auditors have reviewed — three times — the finances at a group of sites run by the Northeast Bronx Day Care Center. In 2004 and again in 2009, the auditors found the centers were using city funds to pay for supplies, employee salaries and rent for programs that had nothing to with the day care program.

A 2012 audit found the problems were fixed, and shortly after Northeast was approved to run pre-K programs. Northeast now provides pre-K for both the Education Department and the ACS.

The city has been ramping up its scrutiny of pre-K programs, statistics show. Officials have declined to automatically renew contracts for an increased number of pre-Ks because of concerns about health and safety as well as quality of education.

A Health Department spokesman emphasized that inspectors won’t leave a site where a serious violation has been identified until the danger has been eliminated. If the site can’t immediately fix the problem and there’s a “direct threat to the children,” the city will close the facility, and no facility can renew a contract until all hazards are fixed.

This school year, fewer than half of the 129 programs that applied for renewal were approved without an issue.

The number of site inspections for pre-K and day care programs has jumped 10% since fiscal 2010 to 23,000. City officials couldn’t say whether the increase has resulted in higher caseloads for inspectors.

If de Blasio’s expansion takes effect, the pressure on the inspection system will be far greater. School officials acknowledged they anticipate having to hire an undetermined number of inspectors to keep an eye on health and safety and fiscal probity in the universal pre-K program the mayor is determined to kick off this fall."...



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