Many daycares unscathed by unsafe toy recalls

Despite recent safety recalls on Chinese-made toys, many area daycare operators say their stock is unaffected.

Concerns about toy safety have escalated since lead paint was found in millions of toys sold under Fisher-Price, Barbie and other brand names earlier this summer.

Melissa Gonzalez, who works at Educare in Edinburg, said her day care primarily uses toys sold by Lakeshore Learning Materials, a Carson, Calif.-based educational material reseller.

“We only have plastic toys and those appropriate by ages,” she said.

Several other area daycare operators seem to purchase their toys from the company, as well.

Sylvia Zuniga, who operates Kinder Campus in Edinburg, said her day care uses Lakeshore Learning materials because the chain specializes in safe toys.

“There’s no controversy with those toys,” Zuniga said.

According to a letter addressed to customers on the Lakeshore Web site from company President Bo Kaplan, Lakeshore sells toys manufactured in China and other countries but conducts its own safety testing before a product hits its shelves.

Although many area day cares purchase toys from Lakeshore Learning, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services — which regulates the state’s child care facilities — does not regulate where childcare providers may purchase their toys.

But Texas does require day cares to provide age-appropriate toys to its children, as outlined by the manufacturer, agency spokesman Patrick Crimmins said.

“There’s no list of toys approved or not approved by the state of Texas,” Crimmins said. “There’s no approved supplier list or anything like that.”

Toys affected by the recalls could be used in some day cares, but the state informs operators about safety concerns, Crimmins said.

Raquel Rodriguez, director at the Playhouse Child Development Center in McAllen, said she had purchased age-appropriate toys for her daycare’s children from national retailers such as Toys-R-Us, Target and Wal-Mart.

Because some of her day care’s toys were included in the recalls, Rodriguez said she has started to buy from others, such as Discovery Toys, which issues a similar guarantee to Lakeshore’s. Even Discovery currently has a voluntary recall for one of its products, which contains small pieces that could break off and pose a choking hazard.

“It’s taking us longer” to find safe toys, Rodriguez said. “We buy toys at least twice a year and it does affect us, because we have to be careful with what we buy.”

Even when day cares exercise caution with toy safety, though, problems continue to arise, she said.

“A lot of these children are bringing toys from home and they are bringing a lot of toys that have been recalled,” Rodriguez said. “Some parents realize it, and some say they played with that kind of product (when they were young) and they are fine.”

Despite the recent rash of toy recalls, daycare operators’ safety concerns generally involve toys that break as they are used, Crimmins said. It is illegal for day cares to provide broken toys to children, he said.

“If there was a toy that when broken — if a sharp object … protruded from it — that toy would need to be disposed of and replaced,” he said.