A woman and her daughter have been arrested after two children died and another was hospitalized when they fell into a swimming pool at a daycare that has repeatedly been scrutinized over concerns of poor safeguarding. 

Nina Fathizadeh, 41, and her mother, Shahin Gheblehshenas, 64, were charged with neglect resulting in death and non-life-threatening injuries after the incident, which happened when Fathizadeh left the children to finish preparing tea and oatmeal.

Police in San Jose, California, were called to a residential daycare on the 1000 block of Fleetwood Drive on October 2 to help firefighters with a welfare check. The daycare was also Gheblehshenas’ home. 

Cops said several children had fallen into a pool at the daycare, which has been given six citations, including two Type A, reserved for the most serious violations, by social services since the beginning of this year. 

The two children who died – listed in charging documents as Jade and Payton Doe – were just 16 and 18 months old. The third victim – listed as John Doe – was just over two-and-a-half years old. 

Nina Fathizadeh (left), 41, and her mother, Shahin Gheblehshenas, 64 (right), have been arrested and charged with neglect resulting in death and non-life threatening injuries after the incident, which occurred when Fathizadeh left to finish preparing tea and oatmeal.

Authorities said a child-safety gate was left open between the Sunday and Monday ahead of the tragedy and remained open when Gheblehshenas’ husband went to water plants on Monday morning. 

Gheblehshenas knew her husband often watered plants and often forgot to close the gate, but failed to check before day care opened that same day and did not ask anyone to do it for her. 

She then left after the first child had been dropped at the day care, having believed she had a doctor’s appointment that, she claims, was actually scheduled for the following week.

Charging documents claim she then ‘chose not to return to the day care in her home’ despite Fathizadeh having already complained of understaffing and another worker already being absent that day.

Gheblehshenas chose instead to go into her daughter’s home, where the two women ran a second, unlicensed daycare to care for Fathizadeh’s two childrend and two other kids. 

At the original daycare at Gheblehshenas’ home, the children were playing in the living room when Fathizadeh let them into the backyard. She could clearly see the open pool gate but allegedly did nothing about it. 

She then went to make the tea and oatmeal but had not view of the children in the backyard. 

‘Upon seeing that the gate to the pool was propped open by a drying rack, [Fathizadeh] went to the pool and located John Doe floating in the shallow end,’ the charging document claims.

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San Jose cops said that several children were found in the pool

Police cordoned off the area to investigate the incidents

Fathizadeh got the boy listed as John Doe out of the pool and did CPR before taking him to a living room, calling 911 and giving CPR again.

She then went to her brother, who was asleep in his bedroom and woke him up. The brother found the two toddlers floating in the deep end before he removed them and himself called 911. 

Two of the children died at a hospital, but the third survived and is now in non-life threatening condition.

Gheblehshenas and Fathizadeh turned themselves into the San Jose Police Department Friday and were booked into a jail cell. Their arraignment is scheduled for December 6.

The daycare was visited eight times over the three years by California’s department of social services, with one visit to specifically talk about the pool in the daycare’s back yard. 

The daycare has already been heavily scrutinized for its alleged safeguarding failures

The managers of the daycare were criticized for having ‘hazardous materials’ stacked in the back yard near the pool. 

On top of this, investigators found several gaps in the pool’s fence during a 2021 visit. 

Other reported threats over the years included a failure to provide a criminal record clearance for an adult who worked in the residential daycare. 

The daycare was also not properly staffed, with state investigators finding that there were too many children in the building for the number of staff members working there, which Fathizadeh herself was concerned about. 

The daycare’s managers also failed to conduct a fire/disaster drill within the past months.