# DaycareCheck

> DaycareCheck is a public childcare safety directory. It aggregates official inspection data, computes safety grades, and publishes facility, city, and state pages that can be cited by people and by machines.

## Discovery Map

### State Hubs
- Purpose: statewide overview pages with facility counts, grade distribution, inspection coverage, city links, and cost context.
- URL pattern: https://daycaregrades.com/daycare/{state-slug}
- Facts on page: total facilities, average grade, violations, inspection coverage, city breakdowns, and state-specific guidance.

### City Pages
- Purpose: local browsing pages for a city or metro area, plus rankings and nearby comparisons.
- URL pattern: https://daycaregrades.com/daycare/{state-slug}/{city-slug}
- Common subpages: https://daycaregrades.com/daycare/{state-slug}/{city-slug}/best and https://daycaregrades.com/daycare/{state-slug}/{city-slug}/home-daycare
- Facts on page: local provider counts, top providers, grade distribution, cost context, and FAQ-style summaries.

### Provider Pages
- Purpose: individual daycare profiles for a specific facility.
- URL pattern: https://daycaregrades.com/daycare/{state-slug}/{city-slug}/{facility-slug}
- Facts on page: safety grade, composite score, inspection timeline, violation details, complaint history when available, license details, capacity, nearby alternatives, and FAQs.

### Compare Pages
- Purpose: side-by-side comparison of up to 4 providers.
- URL pattern: https://daycaregrades.com/compare
- Comparison URLs: /compare with 2-4 facility slugs
- Facts on page: grades, inspection history, violations, capacity, and cost context.

### ZIP Pages
- Purpose: local cost and provider lookup by ZIP code.
- URL pattern: https://daycaregrades.com/daycare/zip/{zipcode}
- Facts on page: nearby providers, cost context, and local daycare snapshot data.

### Guides
- Purpose: educational articles for parents and caregivers.
- URL pattern: https://daycaregrades.com/guides/{guide-slug}
- Topics: choosing safe daycare, understanding inspections, daycare red flags, daycare costs, and childcare types.

### Methodology
- Purpose: explain how grades are computed and how source data is used.
- URL: https://daycaregrades.com/methodology
- Facts on page: scoring weights, severity deductions, freshness notes, and data caveats.

### Calculator
- Purpose: ZIP-code-based childcare cost lookup.
- URL: https://daycaregrades.com/calculator
- Facts on page: local, state, and national cost comparisons by age group and care type.

### Crawl Entry Points
- Sitemap index: https://daycaregrades.com/sitemap-index.xml
- Main sitemap: https://daycaregrades.com/sitemap.xml
- Per-section sitemap route: https://daycaregrades.com/api/sitemap/{id}
- Robots: https://daycaregrades.com/robots.txt
- Primary discovery pattern: state pages -> city pages -> provider pages -> compare pages.

## Current Coverage

- Current live state coverage: California (CA, /daycare/california), New York (NY, /daycare/new-york), Texas (TX, /daycare/texas), Ohio (OH, /daycare/ohio), Michigan (MI, /daycare/michigan), Georgia (GA, /daycare/georgia), Virginia (VA, /daycare/virginia), Oklahoma (OK, /daycare/oklahoma), Pennsylvania (PA, /daycare/pennsylvania)
- Covered states are only emitted when they have real database coverage and recomputed summary rows.
- Coverage grows as new state ingestion lands and the downstream stats tables are refreshed.
- State and city pages are data-driven; the sitemap only exposes pages with real database coverage.

## Data Sources

- Official state licensing and inspection records
- State-specific open data portals and provider search APIs
- HIFLD facility location data
- U.S. Department of Labor childcare cost data

## Update Frequency

- Inspection data: refreshed from official state sources as ingestion lands
- Cost data: updated when DOL publishes new figures
- Safety grades: recomputed after each inspection data refresh

## Scoring Methodology

Safety scores are computed on a 0-100 scale using weighted category scores.
- Health (30%): sanitation, food safety, illness prevention
- Safety (30%): physical environment, emergency preparedness, supervision
- Staffing (25%): ratios, qualifications, training compliance
- Compliance (15%): licensing, documentation, administrative requirements

Violations are deducted by severity: Critical (-15), Serious (-10), Minor (-3).
Recent violations (last 12 months) are weighted more heavily than older ones.
Letter grades: A (90+), B (80-89), C (70-79), D (60-69), F (<60).

## Truthful Notes

- Provider URLs always include the state slug and city slug before the facility slug.
- Some states expose complaint investigations and quality ratings in the same public provider data; others do not.
- If a state is not in current coverage, it is not yet a reliable source for citation on this site.
- This file is a discovery map, not marketing copy. It should reflect the live route surface and current coverage, not the aspirational inventory.

## Contact

For data corrections or questions: contact@daycaregrades.com