Rodent activity was discovered at the McCarthy Family Child Development Center on College of the Desert’s Palm Desert campus. The maintenance staff became aware of a possible issue in September and the California Department of Social Services Community Care Licensing Division stopped by the center and issued a Notice of Violation on Nov. 15.
After recognizing a possible infestation the Maintenance and Operations Department made remediation efforts, but those efforts were not sufficient, and the Department of Social Services received an official complaint on Nov. 13.
The school put out an official media statement on Nov. 20, stating their regret to address the infestation promptly and their plans to resolve it. “We deeply regret this failure to resolve the issue in a timely manner and are taking immediate action to correct it,” the statement said.
The statement also emphasized the priority of the wellbeing and safety of those at the Child Development Center. “The health and safety of the children and staff at the Center remain our highest priority. We are working closely with the Department of Social Services and Licensing to comply with all corrective actions and will continue to keep families informed throughout this process,” the statement said.
The Center currently cares for roughly 70 children. Parents of students were notified of the violation that occurred, and given an outline of the steps the Center plans to take moving forward. As part of the citation, anyone signing up for the Center between now and 12 months from now will be given a copy of the violation so they’re aware of what happened.
After receiving an official complaint to their office in November, The California Department of Social Services Community Care Licensing Division visited the Center to investigate the claim. The complaint alleged that staff reported seeing rodent feces in the preschool classrooms, the old kitchen, new kitchen, student lounge and the laundry room. Mice droppings were also observed by staff on cots and diaper changing areas used by the students.
College of the Desert’s Interim Public Information Officer, Nicholas Robles, said the Center is dedicated to resolving the issue and changing some protocols to do so. “We regret this failure, but we are trying to resolve this as quickly as possible and make sure that it doesn’t happen again with some retooling [of] some of our protocols.”
The Center had to submit an action plan to the Department of Social Services and Licensing. A big part of this plan includes increasing cleaning and sanitation protocols and working with the Maintenance and Operations team to reevaluate the ticketing process.
In addition to working with the Department of Social Services and Licensing, the Center is also working with members of the Executive Cabinet and a pest control company to remediate the infestation.
“We’ve got three executive team members involved to make sure that we’ve got a response not only from maintenance and operations, but also from the CDC, which is the Child Development Center…the executive team is working to bring the different groups together to make sure that we’re communicating and making sure that we’ve got our plan moving along,” Robles said.
The Center is working to educate its staff and ensure that, with the help of the pest control company, they are taking care of possible entry points to avoid a further infestation.
“We’ve also had to do some reeducation with the CDC for things like, for example, making sure that the doors are closed properly and that they’re not propped open. The other thing that we did is we’ve retained a pest control company and they’ve actually gone in and sealed some of the openings around some of the dryer vents and things like that,” Robles said.
The pest control company has been out to the Center consistently to try to resolve the issue. “Now that we’ve submitted our plan, we’ve got the pest control company that has come out every day last week,” Robles said.
The Department of Social Services will make a surprise visit back to the Center. Robles says that they don’t know when to expect them, but the Center is ready for them when they come. “What we’re doing is we’re just making sure that we’ve taken care of all the items. What we don’t know is when the Department of Social Services will come back out here, because they can do a surprise inspection anywhere between today and up to two months from now… we’ve worked on the issue, and now we are ready for them to come back anytime…” he said.
Robles emphasized the regret of the college for not resolving the issue more promptly, and the priority of the health and safety of those who attend and work at the center. “I would say that we deeply regret this failure to resolve the issue in a timely manner. But, you know, the health and safety of the children at the Center and our staff there are definitely one of our top priorities and we’re working through this through some corrective actions, and we are trying to keep the families informed that utilize and depend on our CDC,” he said.
The McCarthy Family Child Development Center is working to resolve the issue of this rodent infestation. Members of the Center and COD faculty are being transparent about the issue and the steps being taken to remediate it. For any further information, contact Nicholas Robles.
