WALKER, Mich.—There’s a lot of working parents in Kent County that rely on daycare workers to watch their children and keep them safe, but not all daycares live up to the parents’ expectations.
A recent investigation in Kent County is profiling a former daycare in Walker that didn’t meet the standards of the Michigan Department of Licensing Regulatory Affairs.
The people we trust to take care of our children is not something to be taken lightly and the documents Fox 17 News reporter, Cassandra Arsenault, waded through have some disturbing details. Fox 17 News asked the daycare for comment on camera, but they declined, adding the report was ‘knit-picky.’
A handful of children used to spend their days at Leonard Street in Walker, but the sound of children playing in that yard was silenced 4 weeks ago.
After a complaint from a parent, the daycare run by Terri Kowalczyk was investigated only to find violations from letting kids play outside unsupervised to going over their capacity of watching 6 children at a time. Also, some unsettling findings like Kowalczyk’s husband using expletives to describe one of the kids, and Kowalczyk leaving to go to a bar, and leaving the children as young as 1-year-old with her 14-year-old daughter. In the report Kowalczyk admits to making out with her boyfriend on the couch while she’s looking after the kids.
There have been 40 daycare facilities shut down in Michigan this year alone, and 14 of them in West Michigan. To see a complete list of the daycares shutdown click here.
If you have concerns about your daycare facility you can file a complainthere.
