State Compelled to Change Policy After KARK Report On Day Care Videos
By: Lauren Trager, KARK 4 News
Updated: August 24, 2012
Every daycare worker in the state may soon be under new regulations, all because of a story we first brought you Monday.
We told you about disturbing videos, taken inside a daycare and then posted to Twitter.
At this very hour, police are still conducting a criminal investigation. The Department of Human Services is also looking into it too.
In one video, an employee at a Little Rock daycare is heard forcing a 3-year-old boy to pull used paper and feces out of a toilet.
In another video posted to the employee's Twitter page, the child is running around only half-dressed.
We went to Ms Carrie's Day School in Little Rock and spoke with owner and the employee--Leigh Miller.
"I have the video, but I did not post it," Miller said at one point.
Miller was fired on the spot.
Police were called and an investigation launched.
Tuesday, the day care owner told us she'll be installing surveillance cameras and will lock up all employee cell phones on premises.
But she's not the only one making changes.
"You shouldn't use your cell phones unless it's an emergency," said Amy Webb with the Department of Human Services.
Webb says, what was once only advice about cell phones in daycares, will likely now become mandatory.
"In light of the situation we were notified about yesterday, we are going to look into including that in our actual rules and regulations in written form," Webb said.
State leaders, she says, intend to prohibit daycare workers from taking any pictures or videos without written parental permission. More, they want to ban cell phones in daycares all together except in extreme cases.
"It's a common sense rule but maybe this is a good time to actually put it into the regulations," Webb said.
Webb says it's impossible to prevent all problems.
But perhaps such a rule could have kept what happened in the videos from occurring.
Official policy changes could yet be months or a year away.
Also down the road: one lawmaker Tuesday told KARK she thinks everyone should be mandated to report suspected child abuse.
These videos were posted for four weeks on a Twitter site that got thousands of hits and KARK was the first to report them.
Of course, we'll continue to cover this story and bring you more as it develops.
Previous coverage on this story:
Disturbing Video Shows Child Removing Feces from Toilet at Little Rock Daycare
Child Psychologist Reviews Disturbing Daycare Videos
Web Extra: Cell Phone Video of Child of Child Forced to Remove Feces from Daycare Toilet


