Bright Horizons, a day care facility in New York City, has apparently closed the doors of its Columbus Circle location after an employee allegedly served kids water with cleaning solution. Thankfully, an adult realized what happened before anyone was made sick, but it’s still not a very good look. After the incident, parents were reportedly told that they would need to seek child care elsewhere. But as every parent knows, it’s not easy to find child care on such short notice, which puts many of the families served by the day care in a bad spot. The shuttering of the location also comes after another scandal involving staff earlier this year.
On October 27, 2025, a staff member put a cleaning solution in a water pitcher that was then served to kids during snack time, CBS News reported. An email from the Health Department confirmed that Bright Horizons was shut down by the city after it “exposed children to a toxic chemical.”
A spokesperson for the day care told CBS News that a teacher also drank the tainted water and noticed something was off. The day care then reached out to poison control. A father told the outlet that he took his daughter for medical treatment, but the spokesperson denied it was ever that serious.
“A mistake was made and to portray it as more than that would be misleading,” the spokesperson wrote, according to the outlet. “There really is no story here.”
Parents, however, think that it was a pretty big deal. One mom, who chose to remain anonymous, told the outlet that she received a call from Bright Horizons telling her she’d have to switch to another day care center, but didn’t give a reason. “This was not communicated to us at all in any way, and it’s just really bad practice,” she told CBS News.
The day care offered a short statement recognizing its mistake. “The safety and well-being of the children in our care is our highest priority,” the statement read. “Unfortunately, the staff member had mistakenly filled the pitcher from a dispenser which contained a diluted cleaning solution — prepared daily for sanitizing toys. This solution consists of two gallons of water mixed with a small amount of bleach.”
“To me, it’s shocking,” Erin O’Connor, director of the NYU Early Childhood Education program, said in an interview. “One of the most basic structural indicators is that you have things set up in a way that there’s no way a toxic material would be near a water supply for children. It gives me pause about how much was done in response to the first incident.”
She continued, saying, “It just doesn’t feel like they have child safety in their best interest.” O’Connor added that the center seems to “care more about their appearance, like how they come off in hiding their mistakes.”
In July 2025, it was reported that three staff members from Bright Horizons allegedly abused nine children between the ages of 1 and 2 years old. Evelyn Vargas, one of the three, was charged with nine counts of endangering the welfare of a child, four counts of attempted assault, one count of strangulation, and one count of assault, People reported.
“I feel like they should’ve been 100% on their best behavior. It’s just hard to believe this kind of mistake happened,” a mom told CBS News. “Especially after the first incident.”
