DaycareList lists 1,466 child care operations in Houston, including 919 licensed centers and 547 home-based operations spread across 97 ZIP codes. Most of these operations are in Fort Bend, Harris County. This page summarizes state inspection records between 2023-10-10 and 2026-10-10, a window in which inspectors recorded 11,092 citations across all operation types in Houston. Of the 919 licensed centers, 814 received at least one citation during that window and 105 did not. The citations are grouped by risk level: 2,397 High, 4,771 Medium High, 3,277 Medium, 434 Medium Low, and 213 Low.
Provider totals and citation counts include all providers, including providers omitted from listings for personal-name privacy or suppression requests.
Citations dated October 10, 2023 to October 10, 2026.
Go to the Texas HHSC public child care search page (link below).
Search for the daycare by name or location to find its listing.
Open the operation details page and the inspection and compliance history page. DaycareList provider pages link to both pages.
Read the citations listed for the operation, noting the risk weight assigned to each standard and whether the citation was corrected at the inspection.
Read the narrative in each citation record to see what the inspector found.
Compare the dates of inspections and citations over the years covered by the state records.
Ask the provider questions about specific citations you read in the record.
Report errors on a DaycareList page through the corrections page. DaycareList data is refreshed from the state through the Texas Open Data Portal; the state's own record is authoritative.
Reading records
deficiency (citation)
A finding that a minimum standard was not met during an inspection, investigation, or assessment.
risk levels
HHSC assigns each standard a risk weight of High, Medium High, Medium, Medium Low, or Low.
corrected at inspection
A citation record may show whether the deficiency was fixed at the time of the inspection.
correction date
The date shown on a citation record for when the correction was made.
correction verified
A citation record may show a date the correction was verified.
technical assistance
A citation record may show whether technical assistance was given.
inspection vs investigation vs assessment
Records published by the state include inspections, investigations, and assessments, along with the deficiencies cited during them.
three-year window
The period DaycareList uses when counting citations in its provider summaries. The state online records cover about the last five years.
minimum standards
The rules operations must follow. For centers they are in Texas Administrative Code Title 26, Chapter 746; for licensed and registered homes, Chapter 747. The governing statute is Texas Human Resources Code Chapter 42.
This standard covers supervision, meaning a caregiver stays physically close to children and keeps visual or auditory awareness of each child's ongoing activity. Citations in Houston records describe caregivers leaving a group of children unsupervised in a classroom, including leaving to open the front door, and one case corrected when the caregiver returned to the classroom.
This standard covers the fire inspection an operation must have before its initial permit is issued and then once every year after that. Citations in Houston records describe operations without a current fire inspection report available for review, where the last documented fire drill or fire inspection had taken place earlier.
This standard covers upkeep of the building, the outdoor grounds, and the equipment. Citations in Houston records describe ceiling tiles separating from the ceiling, tall grass in parts of the playground area, a peeling window covering on a van, and items such as empty boxes, paint, broken toys, and a damaged fence net in areas reachable by children.
This standard covers background check results: an operation must receive notification of the results before a person is allowed to be present. Citations in Houston records describe a caregiver with no background check on file, a caregiver in a classroom with a Pending status, and a caregiver placed in direct care of children without an active background check; some were corrected during the inspection.
This standard covers the required annual report of the number of employees who left employment. Citations in Houston records describe operations that had not reported the number of employees who stopped working during the prior calendar year through the provider portal by the January deadline.
This standard covers the responsibilities of employees and caregivers to demonstrate competency, judgment, and self-control. Citations in Houston records describe a caregiver who did not open the door while children gathered there, a caregiver who waited before responding to someone at the door, and a caregiver's judgment when an incorrect bottle was given to a child.
This standard covers the admission information each child's file must contain, including a complete emergency contact. Citations in Houston records describe files where a parent was listed as the emergency contact, where the emergency contact was incomplete, or where required emergency contact details were missing.
This standard covers the annual sanitation inspection, also called a health inspection. Citations in Houston records describe operations that could not produce a current sanitation inspection report, where the most recent posted inspection was dated in an earlier year.
This guide's text was drafted automatically, checked against the state records by a second automated reviewer, and spot-checked by hand; all counts are computed directly from the state data. It may contain errors. The official state record is authoritative. Records reflect only deficiencies published by the state after due process. This page does not rate or rank providers.