There are not enough daycare inspectors in wisconsin to keep our kids safe according to some experts.
There are actually thousands of daycares in Wisconsin that receive no state licensing, regulation or oversight. And one local mom says what happened to her daughter at one of these unregulated daycares should never happen to anyone.
Lynn Martens lives near Whitewater. When it came time to put her daughter in daycare, she had trouble finding a facility licensed by the state. So she enrolled Allison in a small unlicensed home daycare. Everything seemed to be going fine until Lynn picked up Allison one afternoon.
Lynn told us, "My daughter was pale, foaming at the mouth, very limp, obviously very ill."
Doctors quickly discovered that Allison's throat had been punctured by a cereal spoon and that's not all according to Lynn. "And then further investigations they also found she had fractured ribs and ankle as well."
The owner of Allison's unregulated daycare was convicted of two felonies and did time. Jane Ilgen runs the Wisconsin Childcare Improvement Project. "It is those vulnerable little special people, those children, that we have to make sure that we're always taking care of them," Ilgen told us.
Martens says she would never again take her daughter to an unlicensed daycare. "The state should be coming in and watching what's going onin that daycare, what they're being fed, what they're doing for the safety of our kids."
One expert the I Team spoke with said it is amazing that someone can open up a daycare with no training, and no licensing. And they can continue to run that daycare with no state regulation.
