Day-care center reopens after owner complains

The owner of a local day care center was notified on Wednesday that she could re-open her facility after she called a meeting with public officials to fight its closure, believing the investigation of her facility was unfairly drawn out.

The Children's Learning Castle on 590 N.C. 55 West was closed by the Craven County Department of Social Services on June 17 after a day care center employee reported that individual teachers were having to buy food for the children, said owner Sonya "Monica" Simmons.

Simmons said she also believes racism played a part in its investigation and closure, as she said she is the black owner of a four-star day care center.

Simmons explained her case in a meeting on Tuesday with the president of the Craven County chapter of the NAACP and the chairman of the Craven County Board of Commissioners, as well as a few parents of the 21 children who formerly attended the day care.

 "It's well overdue that this day care can re-open," she said Tuesday. "We're trying to get back to work. We've got bills to pay."

Following the meeting on Tuesday, Jason Jones, board chairman, made several phone calls to get more information about the closure.

Jones said he found that Simmons received a hand-delivered letter Wednesday that she could re-open. He said he believes it was a lack of communication between the different agencies handling the investigation that kept the center closed.

"I'm going to call her right now and apologize on behalf of the county that it was drawn out as long as it has been," he said on Wednesday afternoon.

Simmons said she believes the center should never have been closed, and that the investigation was unfairly prolonged. She received the notice of the closure while she was in the hospital for six days, she said.

"Ms. Simmons has been told that her day care will not be open until DSS (notifies) her in writing," the yellow notification slip reads. "Before the day care can open, Ms. Simmons must have all appropriate food for all children that attend."

Since Simmons was an employee of the Craven County Department of Social Services, she said, the investigation was conducted by the Carteret County Department of Social Services.

Andrea Lewis, assistant section chief of the abuse and neglect unit in regulatory services for the N.C. Division of Child Development, said that although the center is open, the investigation of the center not yet closed.

However, Lewis said that the division did not take any action against the program, and that the center's license is still in place.

"Generally speaking, the division can take administrative action at any time against a facility," she said in a phone interview on Wednesday. "In this situation, the division did not determine it was necessary to do that."

Kent. G. Flowers Jr., director of the Craven County Department of Social Services, declined to talk about the specific case.

"We can't really discuss our investigation, just like other kids that are being abused or neglected," he said.

Simmons said there was enough food for the children in the day care at the time.

 "We shop for a week to a two-week period," she said. "So, when we do, we always get something extra."

Doris Fairley, a lead teacher at the day care center, did say that a cook bought ground beef for sloppy Joes for the children. But she said the children had enough food.

"They had lunch, they had snack, there was milk and juice, and they had water," she said.

Simmons said Carteret was satisfied with the investigation in late June, but the Craven department asked for more interviews with the parents of the children who attended the facility.

"It's like they're trying to find something," she said, adding there have been no other investigations of the facility since she opened it in March of 2007.

 "Do I think racism played a part? Yes I do," she said.

Jones said he has not dealt with any concerns before with the Craven County Department of Social Services, but he said he followed up on Simmons' complaint as her District 2 representative.

"Craven County DSS went forward and did something that they felt they had to investigate to ensure that these children were taken care of, and they treated it just as any request that they would," he said. "But again, should this process have lasted as long as it did? Probably not."

Alfred Barfield, the president of the Craven County chapter of the NAACP, said he came to Tuesday's meeting because Simmons asked him to look into the matter. He added that the organization supports anyone regardless of race.

"People should be able to express their opinions about different things," he said. "And she felt like she was picked on, or done wrong, and it's her constitutional rights to express her opinion."

Laura Oleniacz can be reached at (252) 635-5675 or at loleniacz@freedomenc.com.