Parents are outraged that California state child care licensing investigators questioned small children (some as young as 2 years old) without supervision at three Aspen Leaf Preschools in San Diego. Regulators separated children and conducted interviews in isolated rooms without preschool staff during the "raids" in January.
According to Voice of San Diego, all three San Diego Aspen Leaf Preschools were "raided" simultaneously by state operators, and parents like Stephanie and Richard Rosado say their 4-year-old son was isolated in a room away from his teachers and friends where a state representative questioned him about wearing masks.
Parents liken the agency's tactics to severe situations like those used to investigate child abuse. In their complaint the Rosado's wrote, "This gross abuse of power is shameful and unacceptable for many reasons. The people who ordered this to be done and those who participated should be held responsible.”
Another parent whose daughter was not yet 2-years-old says she doesn't know what happened while her daughter was in the room with state representatives, adding that her daughter “doesn’t have the vocabulary to be able to talk about being interviewed by a stranger.”
Aspen Leaf owners were apparently very open with parents, and regulators about not requiring children at their facilities to wear masks, reasoning that children wouldn't be able to wear them while sleeping and eating, so they could spread COVID regardless. They also felt that masks have a negative impact on children's development.
Howard Wu, who is a lawyer and co-owner of Aspen Leaf, believes that California's child care licensing department doesn't have the authority to enforce the mask mandate. He says that the agency never issued mask regulations and he believes that Aspen Leaf was targeted because he questioned their authority.
California's Department of Social Services and its licensing officials contend that they do have full authority to enforce the state's mask mandate.
Aspen Leaf received a rather severe Type-A citation from the state for failing to require children to wear masks.
After March 11, California will no longer require that masks be worn by children in schools or child care facilities.