Oklahoma mothers rally behind owner of Oklahoma City shut down by DHS
BY RANDY ELLIS
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Published: September 18, 2009
Tuesday’s Department of Human Services’ emergency closure of Vickie Thompson’s northwest Oklahoma City home-based day care has outraged several parents, many of whom claim their children were traumatized by the way DHS employees and police officers handled the situation.
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"When I go to work, I do not have a concern for my children’s safety. When I drop them off at that day care, I know they are in wonderful hands,” said
Nerissa Parks, who had two children at the home day care when it was shut down. "It’s just complete harassment.”
Thompson told
The Oklahoman on Thursday she plans to appeal the closure.
"There wasn’t any kid in danger,” said Thompson, whose home day care is at 10100 Donna Court.
DHS and police executed an emergency closure order at the day care about 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Thompson was cited for inadequate supervision after DHS reported that an unsupervised 12-year-old child was observed Sept. 11 "sitting in a dark garage, in the back seat of a vehicle.”
DHS also objected to the 12-year-old child being permitted to supervise a younger child by walking the girl back from a bus stop down the street. Thompson also was cited for exceeding her 12-child capacity by one and for having too many young children in her care.
Parks said she is the mother of a 6-year-old girl — the student referred to in the order as being escorted from the bus stop by a 12-year old.
Parks said she had no problem with the setup. The bus stop was in plain sight of the day care a supervisor, Parks said.
"Numerous kids walk home from school by themselves,” Parks said.
Shameika Thomas, the mother of the 12-year-old, said she also approved.
"We’re a big family.”
"We all know each other. ... I’m thinking my daughter is responsible enough to go to the end of a block and get a child off a bus.”
Thomas said her daughter,
Zaria, was the child referred to as being unsupervised in the garage. Thomas said Zaria just wanted some quiet time to listen to her MP3 player.
"My child was not in any danger,” Thomas said. "Miss Vickie would never harm a child.”
Three other mothers with children at the day care —
Nicole Anderson,
Jenean Estrada and
Adrina Grayson — told
The Oklahoman they think Thompson has done a wonderful job caring for their children and plan to strongly support her in her appeal.
The women said what they didn’t appreciate was the way DHS and police handled the closure.
"When I went in the house it was total chaos,” Estrada said. "They told me my child’s life was in danger and they were doing an emergency shutdown.”
Parks said a police officer was in a child care provider’s face, screaming at her as the worker held Parks’ child in her arms.
Another of Parks’ children started screaming and crying because of the drama, Parks said.
Parks said she became even more upset when she looked at the DHS worker’s
Facebook page later and saw where she had written that she was tired from having to shut down a day care and had to get "comfort food.”
"How unprofessional is that?” she asked.
Lauri Monetti, a DHS spokeswoman, said the decision to close the day care came after she was cited for a series of violations over several months, including being over capacity, lack of supervision, fire safety violations and issues with food and the cleanliness where diapers are changed.
Monetti said it is DHS’s policy to take a police officer along on emergency closures and acknowledged the officer did get loud during a discussion that took place after Thompson declined to meet in private.
Thompson said she has operated a home day care for four years and always got along well with DHS workers until the current worker came on the scene. She said previous workers would point out potential problems and make recommendations on how to correct them, but the current worker only seems interested in writing her up for violations.
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