Concerns raised about day care

A registered sex offender is in jail for parole violations while police investigate allegations that he visited his wife’s Coeur d’Alene day-care facility.

Stephen Christopher Krous was not supposed to be at Happy Days Child Care at any time, according to the Panhandle Health District. But Deputy City Attorney Warren Wilson said it’s now alleged that Stephen Krous visited Happy Days. A parent filed a complaint with the health district on July 12.

Misty Krous reportedly applied for a Coeur d’Alene child-care license in December 2004 after purchasing Happy Days. Previously, the state had revoked the license she had for Loving Hands, an in-home day care she ran out of the couple’s former Post Falls home. That was in December 2001, after Stephen Krous was convicted and sentenced for fondling an 11-year-old who was staying overnight at the couple’s home in September 2000.

Wilson said the city was aware that Misty Krous’ husband was a registered sex offender but legally had to issue her the license. There was no legal basis for the city to do a background check on Stephen Krous because he wasn’t a member of the limited liability corporation that Misty Krous had formed under the Happy Days name and because the day care wasn’t in the couple’s home, Wilson said.

“We essentially had no other option,” Wilson said. “She met all the requirements.”

The city issued the license but alerted Stephen Krous’ probation officer, who made it a condition that Krous was not to go near the day care.

Stephen Krous’ probation officer, Bob Anderson, wrote in a report in November 2004 that Krous had been told previously “that his wife cannot baby-sit in the home and cannot operate a day care in their home.”

Anderson wrote that Misty Krous had opened a day care in another location in Coeur d’Alene and formed a limited liability corporation which prohibited the city from conducting a background check on her husband.

“I have directed the defendant to not be on the premises of the day care, however I want to make sure that everything is being done to protect the community,” Anderson said in the report. Anderson wrote that in light of Krous’ crime, the couple was “pushing the envelope” with the day care.

The Panhandle Health District operates a Child Care Resource Center for parents looking for child care, but because of a loophole in the law, the agency couldn’t directly tell parents that the owner of Happy Days was married to a registered sex offender.

Susan Cuff, spokeswoman for the Panhandle Health District, said they encouraged parents who inquired about the center to come to the resource center and look at the center’s file. Inside, she said, they tucked a picture of Stephen Krous and his registry information.

“The fact that Mr. Krous was a sex offender obviously sent up huge red flags for us,” Cuff said. “We wanted to make that information as available as we could. We can’t post his picture on the front door of the facility. We can’t harass him in any way.”

Unless parents came looking, though, there was no way of knowing about Krous’ criminal history. According to the Child Care Resource Center, very few parents shopping for child care stop in to look at files.

A mother of two children enrolled at Happy Days said she received a phone call around 9 p.m. Thursday from an employee at the center, saying that there were some “allegations” against owner Misty Krous’ husband and that he was a registered sex offender. The woman and her husband spoke on the condition that they not be identified.

The woman said the employee told her that Stephen Krous hadn’t visited the center, but that Happy Days wanted parents to hear about the allegations before news of the situation appeared in the media. The mother said she kept her children home Friday and doesn’t think she’ll return to Happy Days.

“I was just kind of stunned,” she said. “I still don’t really know what to think or believe.”

She said she doesn’t know if she’s ever seen Stephen Krous at the day care because she hasn’t seen a picture of him.

Her husband said he was upset that Happy Days wasn’t up-front in disclosing that Misty Krous’ husband was a sex offender.

“This has really opened our eyes,” he said. “We’ll be checking into day cares from now on. We’ll be looking into backgrounds.”

Misty Krous was at the day care Friday afternoon, along with at least one employee and a group of about a dozen children, including at least one of her own. She refused to comment.

According to Deputy City Clerk Kathy Lewis, Happy Days has gone through about five owners in recent years. She said the city has never received any complaints about the facility and that in every inspection the city conducted it “appeared to be running to code.”

If the investigation that’s under way now results in Happy Days’ license being revoked, Misty Krous can appeal to the mayor-appointed Child Care Commission and the City Council.

The city is in the process of changing its child-care license laws to require that all employees, not just the facility as a whole, get licenses. Lewis said the change was in the works before the Krous incident.

The new proposal, which must be approved by the council, would require background checks for spouses on a noncorporation-owned day-care center if it isn’t in the owner’s home. Those changes wouldn’t have prevented Krous from shielding the fact that her husband is a sex offender, Lewis said. Laws overseeing corporations don’t allow background checks for anyone other than corporation members.

Cuff said the situation with Happy Days “highlights what currently is the prime topic of conversation in our community – that being the presence of sex offenders, how we monitor them and how we coexist with them in some way.”