Safety & records · Texas
Reading a daycare's record in Texas
Texas publishes inspection records through Search Texas Child Care (HHSC Child Care Regulation). 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 Texas before you fall in love with a center you cannot fund.
The portal
Search Texas Child Care (HHSC Child Care Regulation)
The full compliance history for each center: every inspection activity, every deficiency with its rule number and risk weight, and investigation results.
What this portal does not show
Nothing structural was found hidden in sampling — but the history is long, and the portal does not summarize patterns for you. The pattern read is yours to do (the decoder below teaches it).
How Texas grades what it finds
Deficiencies cite Title 26 TAC rule numbers (chapters 746 for centers, 744 for school-age), each weighted Low, Medium, Medium-High, or High.
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 Texas HHSC Child Care Regulation by phone or online intake through the HHSC website.
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.