Kids hurt, bullied, forgotten: Incidents from KY child care center investigations
Allegations of abuse and neglect in Kentucky daycare facilities are investigated by the Kentucky Division of Regulated Child Care working with the Kentucky Department of Community Based Services.
To get a better understanding of problems these agencies uncover inside child care, the Lexington Herald-Leader used the Kentucky Open Records Act to examine some of their files from the first eight months of 2024, plus local police reports and court records.
Here’s a sampling of the cases that state investigators say they substantiated. In some instances — but not always — police followed up with criminal charges.
Overall, the state said it substantiated 64 cases of child care abuse or neglect in 2024, up 73% in three years.
Western Kentucky
▪ Our Lady of Lourdes, Owensboro (June 24, 2024): Two teachers roughly grabbed and slammed five 1-year-old kids down onto their nap-time cots and on top of each other, carried them around by one arm and sat on them. One of the teachers threw a walk-push toy at the kids that seemed to hit one child and knock them down.
The teachers were not charged.
▪ Smart Start Child Care SOKY - Destiny Lane, Bowling Green (April 5, 2024): A teacher dislocated a 2-year-old girl’s elbow by picking her off the floor by one arm and dragging her across the room because the girl had refused to walk with her.
The teacher was charged with fourth-degree assault on a child. The case remains pending more than a year later, with the next hearing scheduled for June 23 in Warren District Court.
▪ First Baptist Church Child Development Center, Bowling Green (Jan. 5, 2024): A teacher jerked 2-year-old children up by one arm, carried them across the room, pushed them against a wall and deliberately walked into them and knocked them down. Children were given only four minutes for lunch and came home hungry and thirsty.
A total of 10 incidents involving seven children were found to be criminal. The teacher was charged with 10 counts of third-degree criminal abuse of a child, convicted on Aug. 14, 2024, and sentenced to two years on probation.
First Baptist Church announced it would close its daycare on Dec. 20, 2024.
Louisville Metro
▪ And Over The Moon And Back #2, Louisville (June 14, 2024): Teachers overlooked and left behind a 5-year-old boy during a field trip to a neighborhood park on a 92-degree afternoon. When the boy’s grandmother later came to pick him up, daycare staff told her the boy was still at the park. She called Louisville Metro Police to help her search the park for the boy, who required medical attention for dehydration, heat exhaustion and a minor head injury.
No criminal charges were filed. The daycare’s license was revoked, but it remains open as it appeals.
▪ Leap Frog Academy, Louisville (Feb. 13, 2024): A 3-year-old girl was bitten on the arm by a 3-year-old boy. Later that day, a staff member pulled the girl out of her classroom and urged her to bite the boy back “to teach him a lesson,” which she did, but she told her father she felt badly about it. Her father complained to state officials.
The employee was not charged.
▪ Whiz Kidz Academy, Louisville (May 2, 2024): A 9-year-old boy was slammed down onto a table by a 5-foot, 10-inch, 320-pound teacher. She tried to slam him down again but he fought back, so she dragged him out the door by his shirt collar and left him alone in the parking lot, where the daycare’s assistant director found him a few minutes later.
The boy recorded the attack on his phone, but the teacher grabbed his phone and deleted the video. The teacher accused the boy of trying to hit her, leading the daycare to plan his suspension, but surveillance video revealed the truth.
The teacher was charged with fourth-degree assault on a child and evidence tampering. In a July 29, 2024, plea deal, she was convicted on the reduced charges of fourth-degree assault domestic violence and attempted evidence tampering and sentenced to two years of probation.
▪ Academy of Learning, Radcliff (July 2, 2024): A teacher restrained a screaming, crying 2-year-old girl by holding her arms behind her back and pushing her head and body into a wall, causing bruises and a small cut.
The teacher was charged with second-degree assault, later amended down to fourth-degree assault. Her case remains pending in Hardin District Court.
▪ Early Learning Academy College View Campus, Elizabethtown (Feb. 13, 2024): A teacher roughly handled a 3-year-old boy, yanking him forward by his shirt collar, pushing a table against him to pin him, holding him up by one arm and then dropping him. She also encouraged the other kids to taunt him.
The teacher was charged with third-degree criminal abuse of a child, convicted on July 22, 2024, in Hardin District Court, and sentenced to two years on probation.
▪ Crestwood Childcare & Learning Center, Crestwood (Sept. 17, 2024): A teacher yelled at and pulled hard on the arms of a 4-year-old girl who had a severe speech impediment because she wouldn’t cooperate with classroom reading time. Thumb-sized bruises were left on the girl’s arm. The teacher roughly pushed the girl into a chair and pinned the chair against a table so she couldn’t get out. The girl spent the rest of the day crying and trying to hide from the teacher.
The teacher was not charged.
Central Kentucky
▪ Campus Kids Early Learning Center, Lexington (April 5, 2024): A teacher abruptly picked up her purse and walked out of the daycare without a word, leaving her class of five 2- and 3-year-olds for the next 30 minutes in the hands of a startled visitor who happened to be walking down the hall at the time. The same teacher had been accused of roughly mishandling children in her care, yelling at them and using her cell phone while on duty.
The teacher was not charged.
▪ Clark County Child Development Center, Winchester (May 8, 2024): A 6-foot, 11-inch, 255-lb. teacher chased a 5-year-old boy around his classroom and then dragged him out from under a table by his ankles, leaving a rug burn across his back. The boy cried, “My back! My back!” The teacher failed to notify the facility or the boy’s family about the incident; his parents noticed the injuries that evening and had him treated for skin abrasions the next day at the local hospital.
The teacher was charged with fourth-degree assault on a child, but a Clark District Court judge dismissed the charge a year later, noting in the case file that the defendant had not committed any further offenses.
▪ Clark County Child Development Center, Winchester (June 24, 2024): A teacher left alone with 11 children ages 6 to 8 roughly mishandled a 7-year-old boy at least six times over eight minutes, leaving bloodied scratches on his arms from her fingernails. She told the 10 other kids in the class to encircle him and mock him. “OK, everybody call him a crybaby!” she said. “Stop!” the boy cried.
The daycare inaccurately told the boy’s mother that he cut his own arms, so he was admitted later that day into a mental health clinic in Lexington. After the boy insisted he didn’t hurt himself, video surveillance footage from the daycare revealed to state social workers that he was telling the truth.
The teacher was charged with fourth-degree assault on a child. The case is pending in Clark District Court a year later, with the next hearing scheduled for July 12.
▪ Creation Kingdom, Georgetown (April 22, 2024): A 10-month-old boy in a teacher’s arms had the end of his toe amputated by a closing door because his foot was sticking out too far. Daycare gave the toe on ice to the boy’s mother when she came to get him, but it could not be reattached at hospital. The mother faulted the daycare for not calling an ambulance for emergency medical transport to the hospital.
Nobody was charged.
▪ Creation Kingdom, Georgetown (Jan. 1, 2024): A 9-month-old girl came home from daycare with “significant bruising” on her back and stomach, on her left side and under one arm.
A close examination of the infant at UK HealthCare “determined the bruising sustained was diagnostic of physical abuse without any other plausible explanation,” according to a subsequent letter to the daycare from a state social worker at the Department of Community Based Services. “Video footage also showed (the teacher) inappropriately handling (the infant) and other children in the classroom, causing concern for risk of physical abuse.”
The teacher was not charged.
▪ Eastern Scholar House Child Development Center, Richmond (April 23, 2024): A teacher grabbed a 3-year-old boy’s left forearm near the elbow and yanked down hard, leaving a hand-shaped bruise. The boy loudly cried and tried to pull the teacher’s hand off his arm.
The teacher was charged with fourth-degree assault on a child, convicted on Aug. 20, 2024, and received two years probation, with credit for six days of jail time served.
Northern Kentucky
▪ Erlanger Kindercare, Erlanger (March 6, 2024): A parent found a teacher lying on her classroom floor while seven unsupervised 4- and 5-year-old children played around her. Paramedics and police who responded determined the teacher was under the influence of alcohol. The teacher failed sobriety tests; police also found alcohol in a Gatorade bottle in her purse and empty alcohol containers in her car in the daycare parking lot.
The teacher was charged with five counts of second-degree wanton endangerment. The case has since been expunged, which indicates the charges were dismissed, according to the Kenton Circuit Clerk’s office.
▪ Independence Kindercare, Independence (March 1, 2024): A teacher brought her Delta 8 THC vape into the daycare to smoke during her breaks, saying it got her slightly buzzed. She accidentally dropped a vape cartridge near one of the cribs. A 12-month-old girl found it and put it in her mouth, presenting a choking hazard. Poison Control advised taking the girl to the hospital for observation; she was released after four hours.
The teacher was not charged.
▪ St. Cecilia Early Childhood Learning Center, Independence (April 19, 2024): A teacher put her body weight down on a 3-year-old boy during nap-time to force him into his cot, telling investigators later she “may have been frustrated with him.” Red-faced and muffled, the boy protested, “Ow, you’re hurting me!” The teacher grabbed his arm and leg and flipped him in a “rough” manner, and he hit his elbow on the side of the cot.
The teacher was escorted out of the daycare. Later that day, she wrote in her account of the incident, “I am totally confused. What I did is a standard way many of us put kids to sleep.”
The teacher was not charged.
▪ YMCA Crayon Club, Maysville (July 18, 2024): A teacher roughly handled two children, ages 4 and 5, one of whom was autistic. She yanked one child by the arm while yelling in their faces and carried the kids with one of her arms under a child’s armpit and her other arm across the other child’s neck. Her grabbing and pulling of the kids caused one child to fall backwards and left bruises.
The teacher was not charged.
