How to Check Daycare Violations in Texas (Step by Step)

Every licensed daycare in Texas is inspected and the results are public. Most parents never see them, partly because the state's official search is clunky, and partly because the reports use minimum-standards jargon that's hard to interpret.

Here's how to find and read them.

Where the data lives

Texas Health & Human Services Commission (HHSC) regulates child care and publishes:

• License status: active, on probation, surrendered, revoked
• Inspections: every visit, scheduled or in response to a complaint
• Deficiencies (violations): specific minimum standards the center failed
• Risk level of each deficiency: Low, Medium-Low, Medium, Medium-High, or High

You can search it at the official HHSC Child Care Search, or use Canary which pulls the same data and adds a safety score plus Google ratings in one view.

Step-by-step

1. Open the HHSC Child Care Search (or Canary) and search by ZIP code, address, or operation name.
2. Open the provider's profile.
3. Scroll to Inspection History: start with the most recent.
4. For any inspection with deficiencies, expand it and read:
   • The standard number (e.g. §746.1201); the full Texas Minimum Standards explain each
   • The narrative describing what happened
   • The risk level

How to read what you find

Not all violations are equal. Here's how to weight them:

Type	What it means	How much to worry
Paperwork (training logs, posted notices)	Admin gap	Low (common, easy fixes)
Sanitation (diaper area, food prep)	Hygiene lapse	Medium
Ratios / supervision	Not enough adults watching kids	High
Background checks	Staff cleared improperly	High
Medication / safe sleep	Direct child safety	Highest
Repeat violations across multiple inspections	Systemic problem	Highest

A single low-risk citation from 18 months ago is noise. Three medium-or-higher citations in the last year, or any repeat supervision/background-check issue, is a real flag.

What to do if you see something serious

• Ask the director directly about it. A confident, specific answer ("here's what happened, here's what we changed") is reassuring. Defensiveness or vague answers are not.
• Check whether the deficiency was corrected at re-inspection.
• Look at the inspections after the violation. Did the problem recur?

Save time

Canary aggregates inspection history, risk-weighted safety scores, and Google reviews so you can scan a center's record in 30 seconds instead of 30 minutes. Once you've shortlisted, prep with our 27 tour questions.