OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — Mandy Evert says she thought she did everything she could to keep her child safe.
Before the pandemic she made unannounced visits and talked to the teachers.
She also knew the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services was responsible for inspecting and licensing daycares, so she regularly checked the website as well, she said.
“I don’t know what more I could have done differently,” she said.
But Evert said she didn't learn anything was out of the ordinary until parents started talking to each other after a coronavirus outbreak at her daughter's facility, which is the Rosewood Academy location at 5225 N. 158th Ave. Her daughter caught the virus, too.
Since then, three were charged with child abuse, no serious injury, for incidents that occurred at Rosewood Academy.
Learn more: OPD releases reports on Rosewood Academy incidents
None of the online inspections at the location showed any substantiated claims involving child abuse. The one item that was substantiated involved children being left alone outside.
That finding required Rosewood Academy to post a license with a "corrective action status" in a prominent location.
But Evert and other parents told us they never saw the new corrective action status license when that happened in May last year.
Evert wonders if it was posted inside, not on the front door, where she wouldn't have been able to see it.
“I haven’t been allowed inside my daughter’s daycare since essentially the beginning of COVID, for obvious reasons,” she said.
Though no regulations regarding postings changed during the pandemic, a DHHS spokesperson said a regulation stating that postings must be placed in the "child care area" means it must be posted on the premises. The document itself typically specifies these postings must be in a prominent location, the spokesperson said.
Evert and other parents also said they never saw a more recent interim licensing agreement, signed this February, that barred a co-owner, Carl Hansen, from being around childcare children during an investigation. That agreement says it should be prominently posted and clearly visible.
"From a communication perspective, that element just was missing this entire time," Evert said.
A hearing was set to be held last Friday between the state and Rosewood Academy to contest the state's emergency closing order filed April 9. But Rosewood Academy withdrew its request for a hearing, the state said.
Evert also dug for more information on what was reported to the state when her child Henley broke her arm at the facility. Though three people, including the two-year-old, said it involved Henley falling off a slide, Evert says the stories had different variations. She wants to know what was reported to the state, but was denied access to that record.
"It's unfortunate that even when you try to do everything, something can still slip through the cracks," Evert said. "Doesn't make you feel good."
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