Child care providers across Maine cited for safety violations

A loose pill. Pet urine on the floor. Dog feces on the deck. Unexplained “self-inflicted” injuries. A bottle of wood glue and six-inch screws in a play area. A loose bullet. Guns waved around in front of children. A child found in a ditch on the side of the road.

Those are just a few of the problems recorded by regulators visiting child care providers around the state, according to an analysis of thousands of records reviewed by The Maine Monitor and the Center for Public Integrity. 

In one report, following a 2022 visit to Cribs to Crayons in Bradford, half an hour northwest of Bangor, inspectors wrote that children witnessed a provider shove a child against a wall and hit their head “loud enough for others to hear.”

Two years later, inspectors visited again, and found many of the same issues: children reported that they had been locked out alone outside, hit and grabbed by the chin, “body slam[med]” and thrown against cribs and to the ground.

The provider was found by inspectors to have yelled profanity and had been seen by other children spanking her own child and washing their mouth out with soap, an incident she later confirmed to regulators. 

Since August of 2021, Cribs to Crayons has been inspected by the state 21 times and cited for 48 violations. 

Courtney-Jo Arrants, the owner of Cribs to Crayons, denies the allegations and said she has since installed security monitoring cameras.

“If I left all these bumps and bruises on these kids, then where’s the photos of it? Where’s the video? Where’s the doctor’s visit?” said Arrants. According to state inspection reports reviewed by The Monitor and Public Integrity, investigators spoke to children at the program who confirmed the incidents. 

Cribs to Crayons was issued a conditional license, which requires providers to follow a “directed plan of action,” a formal order with specific regulations or standards that must be met before a full license can be issued. 

Cribs to Crayons’ conditional license and directed plan of action, issued in January 2024 and valid for one year, required a variety of corrections, including that Arrants complete training on “positive and constructive methods of Child guidance” within 30 days and to “ensure only constructive methods of Child guidance are used,” and not subject any children to “an action or practice detrimental to the welfare of Children,” including “corporal punishment, shaming and embarrassing, humiliating or verbally abusing a Child.” 

Cribs to Crayons was also required to post the conditional license and letter from the state “in public view,” and Arrants was ordered to be evaluated by a “qualified professional” within 30 days to determine whether she was able to safely care for children. Regulators temporarily reduced her licensed capacity to six children, instead of 12.

Cribs to Crayons’ conditional license was removed in August after inspectors determined Arrants had come into compliance with state rules; the daycare is now fully licensed until August 2026. 

The Maine Monitor and the Center for Public Integrity reviewed more than 6,000 available inspection reports for 1,460 of the state’s more than 1,500 child care providers across Maine and found that providers have been repeatedly relicensed after multiple reported transgressions, which vary from missing immunization records to leaving children unsupervised. (The data analyzed includes 1,527 providers; those without inspection reports on the website were not included in the analysis.)

Since 2021, the state has not revoked a single child care license, despite reports confirmed by inspectors of facilities losing children and not realizing they were gone, piles of garbage so high they blocked exits, and firearms waved in front of children. 

While DHHS has not revoked a license since at least 2021, it has voided conditional licenses or denied licenses for twelve facilities during their renewal process, for reasons ranging from missing immunization records and inaccurate attendance to reports of providers withholding food, shaming children or using derogatory remarks. 

Since 2021, the 1,460 facilities have been cited for over 16,000 total violations; in that same timeframe, none has faced a fine. 

“Licensing Action coupled with increased technical assistance and support has proven to be an effective strategy for compliance with regulations, whereas fines represent a punitive action that does not have the benefit of support from Licensing Specialists,” said Lindsay Hammes, the press secretary for DHHS in an email in response to the department’s ability to issue fines.