Safety & records · California
Reading a daycare's record in California
California publishes inspection records through CDSS Community Care Licensing facility search. This page walks you to the record, decodes its vocabulary from the state's own definitions, and states what the archive cannot tell you. We never name, rate, or score a center.
First, the money
Records are half the decision. The other half is whether you can get help paying — run the free check for California before you fall in love with a center you cannot fund.
The portal
CDSS Community Care Licensing facility search
The full Facility Evaluation Report (LIC809) for each visit: the inspector's narrative, every deficiency, and the plan of correction. Reports are PDFs.
What this portal does not show
The PDFs include penalty boilerplate (the $100-per-day language from Health & Safety Code §1596.871) that reads like a finding but is standard text — do not mistake it for a penalty actually imposed.
How California grades what it finds
Type A (immediate threat to health or safety) and Type B (potential threat), cited to Title 22, Division 12.
Words like these are decoded, term by term, in the records decoder — always from the state's own published definitions, and always with the correction status given the same weight as the finding.
If you need to report something
Report a concern to your regional Community Care Licensing office — the facility's own report lists it.
Read any record in this order
- The license status first — active, conditional, or under action.
- The findings, newest to oldest, watching for the same rule cited twice.
- The correction status on each finding — corrected, corrected on site, plan accepted, or still open. It carries the same weight as the finding.
- The blind spots above: what this archive structurally cannot show you.
Portal facts checked October 2026. Only the state agency's record is the record — this page is a map to it, not a copy of it.