SAN JOSE — Two children died and another was injured after they fell into a swimming pool at a residential daycare center in San Jose’s Almaden neighborhood Monday morning, according to authorities.
Police confirmed Monday morning that officers had assisted rescuers from San Jose fire with a welfare check on the 1000 block of Fleetwood Drive at 9:05 a.m. After officers were notified that minors had fallen into a swimming pool, medical personnel transported three children to a hospital in critical condition.
Two of the children were pronounced dead at a hospital, police said. The third child was expected to survive. No details on the children’s ages or names were released.
Police said officers would remain at the scene for a significant amount of time to investigate the incident. The department’s homicide unit will investigate alongside the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, which is county protocol for child deaths.
Online records showed that Happy Happy Home Daycare operates at a site on the 1000 block of Fleetwood Drive. The business is licensed as a small family child care home by the California Department of Social Services; the license allows the facility to care for up to eight children at a time.
On a visit to the facility last month, state licensing analysts cited the facility’s licensees, Shahin Shenas and Nina Fathizadeh, for failing to follow requirements documenting their checks every 15 minutes on sleeping children under their care. The citation required the licensees to show their compliance with the regulations in the future.
In a January visit, state officials noted that the property’s pool met all of the requirements for such facilities, noting that the pool is surrounded by a five-foot tall fence that could still be seen through. The fence is made from a “hard mesh” material and has a self-closing and self-latching gate, according to the inspection report.
Other issues arose during that visit, however. State regulators cited the daycare for multiple violations, including for hosting five infants when they were only allowed to have four. State records show the daycare’s operators worked to correct the issues in the following days and weeks.
The pool ranked among the sticking points that state regulators had when they were finalizing the daycare’s license in late 2020, state records show. Regulators asked that the daycare operators straighten a fence around the pool, and fix a couple gaps in the fencing. The owners did everything asked of them, and the daycare’s license was approved in early 2021, records show.
Bay Area News Group staff writer Jakob Rodgers contributed to this report.
