How we check the data

Everything on this site comes from public records published by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC). The current records were pulled on Oct 20, 2026; the state’s files were last updated Oct 20, 2026. This page explains what we take, what we leave out, and how we make sure the numbers match the state’s.

Where the records come from

HHSC publishes four data files on the Texas Open Data Portal under a public-domain dedication (CC0). We download all four through the portal’s public interface:

• HHSC CCL Daycare and Residential Operations Data (bc5r-88dy): one row per operation: name, permit type, capacity, ages, status, and the state’s own violation and inspection totals.
• HHSC CCL Inspection Investigation Assessment Data (m5q4-3y3d): one row per inspection, investigation or assessment, with its date.
• HHSC CCL Non-Compliance Data (tqgd-mf4x): one row per violation: rule, risk weight, the inspector’s narrative, and correction dates.
• HHSC CCL Sections and Standards Evaluated Data (ywgb-2ig8): how many rules were checked and violated at each visit.

The same information appears on the state’s own search site, Search Texas Child Care, which is the official record. Each daycare page here links to its official record.

How often we update

Each page shows the date of the pull it was built from. Every time we refresh the files (we aim for about once a week), we save an untouched copy of the pull and compare it with the previous one: which daycares, visits and violations were added, changed, or removed. If the state removes a record, it disappears from this site at the next update.

What we include

• Houston only, for now: operations whose official city is Houston. ZIP code pages follow the same rule, so a ZIP that also covers a suburb shows only the Houston-addressed daycares.
• Four permit types: licensed child care centers, licensed child care homes, registered child care homes and listed family homes — 1,468 operations in this pull.
• Not daycares, so removed: 72 general residential operations and 46 child-placing agencies with a Houston address. Our checks stop the update if any of them slip in.
• Five years: visits from Oct 20, 2021 to Oct 20, 2026. Older records stay in our saved copies but are not shown or counted. In this pull that left out 26 older violations.
• Only records the state has posted: every record on this site comes from HHSC’s public data files, and the state’s own search site shows a deficiency only after the operation has had the chance to dispute it (HHSC). For violations from the most recent 14 days (after Oct 6, 2026), we check each one against Search Texas Child Care before it appears here: same date, same rule and same inspector note. In this pull we checked 12 and found all 12 on the state site. Visits the state itself marks “Pending” are listed as “Pending with the state”, with no results shown.

Risk weights

Texas assigns each rule one of five weights — High, Medium High, Medium, Medium Low or Low — based on the risk that breaking it poses to children. A weight belongs to the rule, not to the specific incident, so two High citations can differ a lot in what happened. We show the weight exactly as the state records it, in words as well as color. Across Houston in this period: High 3,950, Medium High 7,795, Medium 5,406, Medium Low 704, Low 299. HHSC minimum standards.

What the numbers on each page mean

• Routine inspections count the state’s monitoring inspections only. Investigations (after a report) and assessments (paperwork reviews) are listed in the timeline and their violations are counted, but they are not inspections.
• Repeat issues are rule sections (for example 746.1205, which groups 746.1205(a)(1) to (a)(5)) cited two or more times in the five years.
• Violations per inspection divides violations found at routine inspections by the number of routine inspections whose results are posted.
• Clean inspections in a row counts back from the most recent posted routine inspection until one with a violation.
• Houston medians compare each daycare with others of the same permit type in Houston. Listed family homes are left out of medians and of the “no violations” share, because the state does not inspect them routinely; 80 of them have no inspection on record and are labeled “Not routinely inspected”.
• Start date: pages count from the start of the five-year window, except where the state’s current permit for a daycare is dated inside that window (a new or reissued permit); those pages count from the daycare’s first state visit on record. The permit date is shown as the state records it, and when the state’s records go back further than that date, the page says so.
• We never combine these into a score or a rating.

Permit flags

Some pages show a highlighted flag copied from the state’s operations file: “Conditions on permit” (the state has set conditions on the daycare’s permit), “Under corrective action” and “Under adverse action” (the state has put the operation on corrective or adverse action), and “Temporarily closed”. They are the state’s current status as of the pull date, not our judgment. What these actions mean is explained by HHSC here; the details for a daycare are on its state record.

Which daycares get their own page

A daycare gets a full record page when, in the five-year window, the state cited the same rule section at least 2 times, or made at least 10 routine inspections. Those are the cases where a repeat-issues table or a multi-year trend has something to show. In this pull that is 977 of 1,468 daycares. The rest appear in the Houston and ZIP code lists with their name, permit type, inspection count and violation count, plus a link to the state record. We set this line after looking at the Houston data: nearly nine in ten Houston daycares had at least one violation, so “any violation” would not separate anything. A full page is not a judgment or a ranking; it only means there is enough history to show. A daycare listed without a full page may still have violations — check its state record.

How the pages are made

Pages are generated by our scripts directly from the state’s data files, so every number on a page can be traced to a state record. The plain-English rule summaries were drafted with AI assistance and checked line by line against the rule text before publishing; the review notes are kept.

Text we change, and text we do not

Inspector narratives and rule titles are shown in the state’s own words. Two changes we make: the state’s files turn some apostrophes into question marks (“child?s”), and we restore them (685 in this pull); and where an inspector’s note names a staff member after a title (“Ms. …”, “Director …”), we replace the name with [name] (4 in this pull). For home daycares we show only the city and ZIP code, never the street address or phone number, even where the state lists them; the operation name is shown as registered, which for many homes is the caregiver’s own name. We also scan inspector notes for children’s names before each release, and the release stops if any are found. Plain-English rule summaries are written separately from the rule text and reviewed against it; they describe the rule, not any daycare.

How we check every update

• Completeness: the number of rows we saved must equal the number the portal reports for the same query (1,468 operations, 14,638 visits, 18,180 violations, 91,739 rule-check rows in this pull).
• Links between files: every violation must belong to a visit and every visit to a daycare; the update stops if more than half a percent fail to link. This pull: none failed.
• Dates and fields: visits dated after the pull, missing names or rule numbers, and risk weights outside the state’s five are counted; above set limits the update stops and the previous version of the site stays up. This pull: 0 future-dated visits.
• Against the state’s own totals: the operations file carries the state’s count of violations at each weight and of inspections, investigations and assessments. Counting the individual records ourselves, all 1,468 of 1,468 daycares match those totals exactly, including all 545 home daycares. Our page counts differ from the state’s totals for 28 daycares, only because of the five-year cut-off and the review window above.
• Manual check against the state website: for this update we compared 25 randomly chosen daycares with Search Texas Child Care, field by field; 25 matched (100%). Every mismatch is investigated before a release goes public.

Corrections

If something here does not match the state’s record, tell us. We check it against the state record and fix any error we introduced. We do not remove accurate public records on request; when the state changes or removes a record, we follow at the next update, or sooner if someone tells us.