DCF shuts Homosassa day care center

Enchanted Moments Preschool runs afoul of agency edicts to exclude the owner's son and husband. One mother had to call DCF to find out.

	[Times photo: Ted McLaren] Playground equipment lies unused Wednesday at the Enchanted Moments Preschool in Homosassa. The state Department of Children and Families closed the day care center earlier this month.

The Department of Children and Families has shut a Homosassa preschool, citing its history of failing to comply with the state agency's licensing rules.

Enchanted Moments Preschool, at 4950 S Suncoast Blvd. (U.S. 19), was supposed to stop operating April 2. However, one mother said she wasn't notified of the closure, and the day care continued to accept children until April 7.

According to DCF documents, the decision to close Enchanted Moments was spurred by owner Patricia Science's recent violation of an agreement that she had struck with DCF last year.

That agreement, handwritten and dated March 31, 2003, was drafted after Science's 29-year-old son was arrested on charges of having illegal sexual contact with teenage girls. One of the incidents is alleged to have taken place in a bathroom at Enchanted Moments in January 2003, court records state.

DCF gave Patricia Science a six-month provisional license with the understanding that she would change the locks on her facility and allow no access to her son, Joshua, until the criminal allegations against him were resolved.

The agreement also stipulated that her husband, Ted, could not enter the facility during business hours, neither could he work as the day care bus driver nor have any contact with children. The document did not indicate the reason behind the provision concerning Ted Science, 59.

On the morning of Feb. 17, a DCF licensing counselor arrived for an unannounced inspection, state records showed. Ted Science opened the door. Patricia Science denied the man was Ted and admitted his identity only after the inspector confronted them with a photocopy of the man's driver's license, the records showed.

As a result, DCF denied Patricia Science's application for license renewal in a March 24 letter. The letter ordered the preschool to cease operation starting April 2.

Yet Jennifer Saltzman's 7-year-old son was still attending the day care April 7. That afternoon, a friend called Saltzman to inform her that Enchanted Moments supposedly had been closed by DCF.

Saltzman immediately called the agency. A DCF official confirmed the closing, but said state law only required the agency to notify parents of children attending the day care on the state's dime.

Saltzman wasn't pacified. She wanted to know why Enchanted Moments had been shut down, but she said she couldn't get a straight answer.

"Parents have a right to know," Saltzman said.

She heard two different stories. Patricia Science sent home a letter to parents saying the preschool would close for a long Easter weekend and reopen April 13.

Science later told Saltzman that her lawyer said she could continue taking children from private-paying families, but had decided against it until the situation with DCF was worked out.

DCF officials told Saltzman the child care facility would not reopen.

No one returned messages left on the answering machine at Enchanted Moments this week. Patricia Science has requested an administrative hearing with DCF, at which she or her lawyer will have the opportunity to dispute the agency's order.

The hearing date has not been set, DCF spokeswoman Renea Marcano said Thursday.

According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Patricia Science, 57, has no criminal record.

Neither does her husband. But Ted Science resigned from the Citrus County school system in 1995 amid allegations of an inappropriate relationship with a Lecanto Middle School student.

Science, who had worked as a speech therapist, corresponded with the girl through letters. In one, the teacher called his student "sweetie." In another, he dubbed himself "a sentimental old fool."

A settlement agreement reached in May 1998 with Florida's Education Practices Commission states that Science chose not to contest the allegations.

Instead, he agreed to a five-year probation that would commence upon the start of his next teaching job.

DCF records show he violated that probation by not providing required documentation to prove he posed no threat to the safety or well-being of students before taking another educator position.

Joshua Science awaits trial on charges of unlawful sexual activity with a minor, computer pornography/child exploitation and lewd and lascivious battery on a child younger than 16.

In one case, he is accused of holding a knife while fondling a 16-year-old Homosassa girl who then performed oral sex. Science later told authorities the encounter was consensual. He denied wielding a knife, but said he carries one at all times.

He has pleaded not guilty to all pending charges.

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