“Childproofed” is not a standard, and a center that says it takes safety seriously has not told you anything. What Texas actually requires is a list, and the list is specific enough to check on a walk round a room.
Outlets covered. Heaters out of reach. Bottle warmers out of reach. Nothing in the yard with a gap a head fits through. No climbing frame over concrete. No water anywhere a child can get to it, in any quantity at all — that last one is the only item on the hazard list the state weights High.
If your child was hurt by a condition in the building or the yard, the question is not whether the center was doing its best. It is which numbered standard covers what they met, and whether this center had been cited under it before.
Free case review
A conversation with an attorney about what happened, at no cost and with no obligation.
No fee unless you recover
Agreed in writing before we start. Case expenses come out of the recovery, not out of your pocket.
The file is public
Five years of inspections and deficiencies for any licensed Texas center, free, tonight, under its own name.
The Hazard Rule
Ten things that must not be within a child’s reach
§746.3701 opens by requiring every area accessible to a child to be free from hazards, and then names ten. They are examples, not the limit — but they are the ten most often cited.
Electrical outlets
Every outlet accessible to a child under five must have a childproof cover or be a safety outlet, and 220-volt connections within reach must be screened or guarded.
Fans, heaters and air conditioners
Mounted out of the reach of every child, or fitted with safeguards that keep any child from being injured by them.
Glass in sliding doors
Marked at children’s eye level with decals or something like them, so a child running at a clean pane can see it.
Play materials and equipment
Free from sharp or rough edges and from toxic paint — which reaches the toys and the furniture, not only the playground.
Poisonous plants
Inaccessible to all children. This one catches out centers that have landscaped the yard without checking what was planted in it.
Bottle warmers
Inaccessible to all children, and used only as the manufacturer directs. Scald burns from a bottle warmer within reach are a rule breach and not an accident.
Chests, boxes and trunks
Anything with a hinged lid must have a lid support that holds it open in any position, ventilation holes, and no latch that could shut a child inside.
Water, in any quantity
Every body of water — wading pools, hot tubs, birdbaths, fountains, buckets, rain barrels — inaccessible to all children.
Televisions
Anchored so they cannot tip, including where a set is on a rolling cart. Furniture and television tip-overs are among the most lethal hazards in a room full of climbing toddlers.
Everything else within reach
The rule opens with “all areas accessible to a child must be free from hazards”, and the ten items are examples rather than the limit.
Outside
The playground has its own chapter
Six sets of requirements, from where the equipment may be placed to what may be underneath it and what children of a given age may not be allowed on at all.
It has to be supervised, and it has to be arranged so it can be
The first requirement in the playground rules is that the equipment be arranged so that caregivers can adequately supervise children at all times — weighted High.
Entrapment, entanglement and pinch points
Equipment must have no opening or angle that can trap a child’s body or a body part, no protrusion or opening that can catch clothing or something round a child’s neck, and no exposed pinch, crush or shear points on it or underneath it.
Anchoring, and where the anchors are
Equipment must be securely anchored to the manufacturer’s specification so it cannot collapse, tip, slide, move or overturn — and every anchoring device must sit below the level of the playing surface, so that the anchor itself is not what a falling child lands on.
What may not be over concrete
Climbing equipment, swings and inflatables must not be installed over asphalt or concrete unless it is covered with properly installed unitary surfacing. This is the standard behind most serious playground head injuries at a daycare.
Barriers and handrails, by height
Porches and platforms above twenty inches for pre-kindergarten and younger children, and above thirty inches for school-age children, must have protective barriers a child cannot crawl over or through.
Equipment children may not use at all
Heavy metal swings, structures that let a child fall inside and onto other parts of the structure, trampolines above a very small size, swinging rings and trapeze bars, multiple-occupancy swings such as seesaws and gliders, swinging gates and giant strides.
Evidence
There is no requirement to have cameras
Which surprises most parents, and changes what the first week has to be spent on. Four things prove a premises case at a daycare, and three of them expire.
There is no requirement to have cameras
Texas does not require a child-care center to have a video or audio monitoring system. Where a center has cameras it has them voluntarily, and no rule requires it to keep what they record for any period at all.
The incident report is the document to ask for
An injury needing treatment from a health-care professional requires a written report, signed by the director, with your copy and your signature inside 48 hours.
Photograph the thing itself, today
The broken rail, the gap in the fence, the surface under the climbing frame, the outlet, the unanchored shelf.
The public file says whether it was known
Search the center at childcare.hhs.texas.gov and look for prior citations under the hazard and playground standards.
Questions
Facility safety FAQs
What parents ask after an injury in the building or the yard.
What are the facility safety standards for Texas daycares?
They are in Chapter 746 of the Texas Administrative Code. §746.3701 requires every area a child can reach to be free from hazards and names ten of them — outlets, fans and heaters, glass doors, toys, poisonous plants, bottle warmers, hinged chests, water in any quantity, and televisions. Subchapter U covers the playground: supervision sight lines, entrapment, anchoring, surfacing over concrete, barriers by height, and equipment children may not use at all.
My child was hurt on the playground. Is the daycare responsible?
It depends on which standard the equipment or the supervision failed, and that is a narrower and more answerable question than it sounds. Was the equipment anchored?
The daycare has cameras but says the footage is gone. Now what?
It is a common answer, and Texas does not require a center to have cameras or to keep any recording. Systems overwrite on a cycle measured in days or weeks, and nothing is preserved unless somebody asks in writing.
They say my child “just tripped”. Does that end it?
No. Young children trip constantly; the standards exist because what they land on and what they reach decides whether tripping produces a bruise or a hospital admission. Concrete under a climbing frame, an anchor above the surface, an unguarded heater or an unlatched gate each turn an ordinary fall into a serious injury.
How long do I have?
Your child’s own claim is suspended while they are a minor and generally runs to two years after their eighteenth birthday. Your own claim for what you have paid is the ordinary two years from the day it happened.
