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Stories about children hurt or killed while in childcare pop up often enough that the Austin American-Statesman's investigative team started to wonder: How safe are Texas child cares? The Statesman's investigative team dug into thousands of pages of state records, made more than 100 public information requests, and spoke with dozens of families, experts and state officials. We analyzed 40,000 day care violations and built a database showing that child care providers are often not paying attention when children get hurt and that hundreds of operations have been cited for failing to tell both parents and the state when children are hurt. We sought to give readers a comprehensive look at safety issues in the Texas day care system — a system that serves more than 1 million children every day.