A teacher at the KinderCare branch on Old Toll Road in Florence who was recorded yelling and grabbing one of the kids at the center no longer works there, but won’t be prosecuted.
The move follows the circulation of a video showing the woman’s actions on social media, prompting a call to the police.
The video was captured by “a concerned neighbor who said this has happened for seven years but could not catch her in the act,” according to the police report. The video quickly made the rounds on different community groups on Facebook, most notably the Northern Kentucky Moms and Friends group. The name of the neighbor who took the video is redacted in the police report.
Police spoke with the center’s employees, who showed them the video. The mother of the child arrived at the center while police were there, according to the report. The child, according to the report, “did not complain of any pain, [but] there appeared to be redness and a bruise on the left cheek area.”
Both the parents’ and the teacher’s names are likewise redacted in police documents.
A detective later tracked down the neighbor who took the video. Staff at the center reported to the police they “were made aware of the video and immediately removed the teacher from the premises and called the State to report the incident.”
The video occurs in the shadow of two lawsuits against two other KinderCare branches in Northern Kentucky, as well as a class action lawsuit against the company at the federal level.
Read LINK nky’s coverage of the KinderCare lawsuits at the link below.
The police confirmed the teacher was the subject of a complaint from several months prior, “where she was said to of [sic] hit a child,” according to police, but that complaint had no video evidence. The report goes on to state that KinderCare only live streams its security footage and doesn’t keep it, which has been a point of contention in the lawsuits.
Police records indicate that there have been three other complaints against staff members at the Old Toll KinderCare this year. A staff member at the center confirmed the teacher in the video no longer works at the center, but could not confirm or deny it was due to backlash from the video. The Boone County Attorney’s office confirmed they were not going to criminally prosecute the teacher.
LINK nky has reached out to KinderCare’s corporate office for comment, but they had not responded by the time this brief went up. However, the company has previously made a statement to another news organization, Fox19, about the incident:
Nothing is more important to us than the safety of the children in our programs. We do not tolerate this type of behavior in our school, and the teacher involved is no longer an employee of KinderCare.
We have been in communication with the family of the child involved and reported the incident to state licensing.
The actions of the teacher involved are in no way representative of the work of our countless dedicated teachers and staff who pour their hearts into creating a place where children can grow, learn, and thrive with confidence on a daily basis.
