The city of Durango has entered a probation agreement following an incident last year in which two children went briefly without supervision during a city-run day care program.
According to a news release from the city, the incident was self-reported immediately by the city to the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, which issues day care licenses for programs like Gametime.
Gametime is a city-run program that offers all-day and after-school day care for children 5 to 15 years of age. The program offers activities including “games, art and crafts, swimming, field trips, nature walks and much more.”
The release provided few details about the children and how they ended up without supervision.
“Details remain confidential because minors are involved, however the unsupervised children were quickly found safe and unharmed,” the release said.
Colorado Department of Early Childhood recently completed an investigation of the incident, the release said. The city then entered the agreement to continue operating child care programs for the next nine months but on a probationary status.
City spokesman Tom Sluis said the state has set forth expectations for how the city can improve Gametime’s operations and ensure this kind of incident does not happen again.
“This is a legally binding agreement between the city and the state that sets out certain actions and expectations from an operational standpoint that the city agrees to implement, and the state will monitor for the next nine months,” Sluis said in a text message to The Durango Herald.
Sluis said the city has been updating its policies and procedures since the incident. Additionally, the news release said the Parks and Recreation Department has evaluated and retrained staff, and updated Gametime’s supervision policies.
“Now that the state has finished its inquiry, we wanted to let the public know of the outcome because we understand the trust that parents place in our staff when it comes to taking care of their children in our programs,” Sluis said.
sedmondson@durangoherald.com
