It’s unfathomable that parents who ignore obvious signs and
leave their children at such a place with a person in such a state
of mind
The front-page July 26th Dispatch story, “Questions Surround Daycare” is the most bizarre story I have read in years.
Reprise: Jody Duell allegedly tried to bring some crystal methamphetamine into the South County Courthouse on Dec. 22. She was arrested for possession and booked. Her drug test was positive for meth.
Bringing meth into a courthouse, where one must walk through a metal detector and have one’s belongings X-rayed, is pretty bizarre.
Jody Duell is a licensed childcare provider, and the state childcare regulators learned of Duell’s arrest in December, but did not revoke her license, because she had not yet been convicted. They apparently did not even notify the parents of the children in Duell’s daycare establishment.
Not notifying parents that a daycare provider has been busted for meth is very bizarre.
Duell was arrested again Jan. 28 for driving under the influence. Again, regulators were notified, again parents were not. Even after Duell was convicted on both charges, parents were not officially notified.
Extremely bizarre.
Instead, on March 19, parents, children, and daycare assistant all showed up at Duell’s empty house in the northwest quad for a normal day. Police were present, but Duell had skipped town, and did not return, according to the police, until April 3.
The strangest part of all is that Duell’s behavior became alarming to parents weeks before she disappeared. She stopped showering or brushing her hair, according to her assistant. She told one parent someone wanted to kill her, that the FBI was watching her, that she planned to rob a jewelry store, that she was the princess of Cuba.
Are you ready for the most bizarre part?
Only one parent pulled her kid out. No one called the police. They just kept paying around $200 a week to have this apparently unbalanced individual look after their children.
Totally bizarre.
Now, please note that Jody Duell is a licensed California childcare provider. A recent Dispatch feature article discussed childcare, how expensive it is, how many people cannot afford licensed care providers, but instead rely on unlicensed providers and family.
(The feature article, although attempting to be complete, fair, and balanced, does not mention the option of raising one’s own children at home in one’s spare time. Too fringe, I suppose. But I digress.)
Licensed childcare providers, on the other hand, have to pass a background check. The check requires that if the would-be provider has ever been convicted of any crime more serious than a minor traffic violation, she must apply for an exemption. The July 26 Dispatch article quotes Oscar Ramirez, public information officer for California’s Community Care Licensing Division, as saying that 11 percent of California’s 230,000 childcare applicants requested criminal exemptions in 2006, and nearly 37 percent of those exemptions were granted.
Do the math – in 2006, 9,000 people with criminal records of some sort were allowed to apply to be licensed as childcare providers. Being convicted of a drug charge does not bar an applicant from working as a childcare provider.
Oscar Ramirez justified his failure to notify parents whose children were in the care of Jody Duell thusly: “We can’t just act on an arrest, unless it’s considered inimical to the health and safety of the clients. Everybody gets their just due, right?”
I hope that child abuse is considered inimical to the health and safety of the clients, even if methamphetamine and alcohol abuse are not.
In addition to her aforementioned crimes, Duell had another conviction for resisting arrest in June 2006. She also hired an uninvestigated assistant. She also allowed two men with criminal convictions to have access to the children in her care.
At a minimum, I think the state needs to notify parents of all arrests and convictions of licensed childcare workers. Let the parents decide if it is okay for an alleged druggie to watch their kids.
But the larger issue is that parents are far too cavalier about leaving their precious children in the care of strangers. And that will not change so long as the working parent is seen as the norm in our society, instead of as the unfortunate exception.
Cynthia Anne Walker is a homeschooling mother of three and former engineer. She is a published independent author. Her column is published in The Dispatch every week.
