http://www.gazetteextra.com/daycaredrugs120406.asp
7 Milwaukee day cares shut down due to drugs
MILWAUKEE - Drug-related crimes caused the state to shut down seven area licensed day care facilities from June 2005 through June 2006, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
Ruth Schmidt, executive director of the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association, told the newspaper that there needs to be better monitoring of day care operations and a quality rating systems similar to those used for restaurants and hotels. State lawmakers rejected such a rating system last year.
"Obviously, we cannot have environments like that and provide a quality experience for children," Schmidt said.
State day care regulators say while there has been an increase in the number of Milwaukee day care businesses where drugs were kept or sold, the trend is not indicative of an epidemic in the Milwaukee child care community.
"The occurrences of drug activity at the seven centers should not diminish the efforts of the thousand other licensed centers that exhibit high standards in the provision of early childhood education to the children in Milwaukee," the state Bureau of Regulation and Licensing said in a statement provided to the newspaper.
In one instance in the fall of 2005 at A Helping Hand Creative Learning Place, police executed a search warrant and found a duffel bag containing 2 pounds of marijuana, a digital scale and a Helping Hand business card. Upstairs from the day care, where Dialo Mosley and his wife Natalie Coopwood lived, police found two loaded pistols, $7,000 in cash, three cellular phones and a pager
Coopwood owned the day care. Mosley was later convicted of possession of drugs with the intent to deliver and possession of a firearm by a felon.
Coopwood admitted that she knew her husband was selling drugs, records show.
Mosley, who will be eligible for release from prison in 2009, did not respond to a written request for comment from the newspaper. His wife did not return several phone calls or respond to a letter sent to her home seeking comment from the newspaper.
"Parents send their children to the day care center thinking that there's nothing unusual or in any way dangerous about the place," Judge Joseph Wall told Mosley as he sent him to prison in January for 3 ½ years for distributing drugs at a day care. "But, in fact, (A Helping Hand Creative Learning Place) was an extremely vulnerable and a very unsafe place, a very dangerous place for children to be because of the dope and because of people recognizing that Mr. Mosley sells good-size quantities of marijuana."
The other six cases ranged from low-level marijuana dealers to a reputed big-time cocaine trafficker.
David Riley, a University of Wisconsin-Extension researcher and expert on child care in Wisconsin, said it's important to keep in mind that illegal drug dealing seeps into many types of businesses.
"You probably find as much of that in child care as you do in other businesses," Riley said. "But you would hope that people caring for our youngest, most vulnerable citizens would have higher standards."
The state Bureau of Regulation and Licensing, charged with ensuring that day cares meet minimal health and safety requirements, said it relies on "community information" to learn if illegal drugs are being sold or kept on day care premises. But that can be hard to do because so much of what day care centers do is behind closed doors.
When the bureau gets a tip, state inspectors call the police. If drugs or weapons are found at the day care, the place will be shut down.
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