DAY CARE OPEN DESPITE REVOCATION

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 12, 1993                   TAG: 9302120348
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                                LENGTH: Short
DAY CARE OPEN DESPITE REVOCATION
A day-care center whose state license was revoked last summer over concerns about "bizarre discipline" is still open while it appeals the case.
Inspectors said children at the Salem Child Care Center were punished by being forced to sit on toilets without underwear for extended periods, were isolated in "time-out" rooms and had their faces covered with blankets if they couldn't sleep at nap time.
The state also said a co-owner of the facility force-fed a child until he gagged and threatened a child by waving a wooden spoon and banging it on a table, and that parents were denied access to classrooms.
Walburga and Mack C. Smith, the center's owners, declined to comment. But in a written response to the state's allegations, they denied most of them.
They said children placed on toilets without underwear were being potty trained, that children sometimes covered their own heads at nap time, that children in time-out were never out of view or hearing of attendants and that parents were never denied access to classrooms. The force-feeding and spoon-banging allegations also were denied.
There is no deadline for a decision in the case by the director of the Social Services Department.
The center, which had been licensed since 1989, can care for 120 children, ages 2 to 12.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB