I am writing in response to the various actions and what seems to be a cover up taken by the directors at Kindercare-Knowledge Learning Corporation and the corporate office regarding my pre-toddler son and the violation of his personal rights on several different incidents.
We have encountered a serious, ongoing problem involving the quality of care for our son while in the toddler classroom and the lack of a resolution when these numerous issues were addressed to center directors Robin Atmore and Donna Myers-Horton.
On July 30, I walked in early from work and found to my horror, our son woke from his nap early and was physically being restrained in a blanket, wrapped like a burrito, with only his head out, and was being held down on his stomach by teacher Ms. Shannon. During this restraint, my son was injured and his mouth was bleeding. When I questioned Ms. Shannon as to what she was doing and addressed his injury to her, she told me she was trying to make him go back to sleep. I addressed this to Robin and Donna, and her answer was that they have a nap policy in place. And told me she was going to have a meeting with her staff, and these are the only results I got regarding this. Later at some point she tried to tell me this was an accident and tried to twist the incident by stating he was never held down. I was there and saw what happened, so I am highly upset that she would state something like this to me. I filed a complaint with the state licensing board and they were cited.
In the first week of August, I sent an e-mail to Robin and Donna, regarding some additional concerns. I was not being provided with incident reports for any incidents that occurred with my son. For example, I was told by teacher Ms. Shannon on a seperate incident a week after he was injured on the mouth. I expect a report the day it occurs, not weeks later. This issue seemed to be resolved, as I begun to receive weekly incident reports.
On August 21, I picked up my son from the care of teacher Ms. Suh. I did not receive any incident reports nor was never provided with an answer to this incident. My son had a huge bruise on his forehead bigger than the size of a plum. She told me she didn't know how he got it, even though he was in her care. Robin questioned all the teachers, and he did not have a bruise, and got it while in the care of Ms. Suh. Robin told me she did not have an answer to how he got the bruise, and said, "It's one of those Life mysteries". This is unacceptable!
A few weeks ago, I picked up my son from the care of Ms. Suh, I asked her to change his diaper before we were to leave, and she grabbed my son by the arm and pulled him toward the changing table. My son was screaming and crying. I noticed a red mark on his arm after. I pointed this out to Ms. Suh, and I showed her what she did to his arm. She said to me, "Oh, I'm Sorry. My response was, "Be careful!" and I left the issue at that.
Monday, Dec. 10. This issue came up again with Ms. Sue, but only worse. I picked up my son from her care, and went back to ask her to change his poopy diaper. She seemed flustered and grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him towards the changing table. My son was screaming and crying. I didn't notice right then, as my son was wearing long sleeves, but upon getting him in the car, I noticed red marks on his wrist and it was red and swollen with the impression of finger marks. I addressed this issue to Donna and showed her the marks on his wrist, and she told me that this was an accident and that her staff is trained. I had to take my son to the doctor, as his wrist was still swollen days later and was showing bruising. He was hesitant to use his wrist, and I suspected it may have been sprained. Donna stated Kindercare would pay for the doctor bills, and that she spoke to Ms. Suh and she said she apologized. I filed a police report and I filed a complaint with the State licensing board of CA, to date is still pending!
Time and time I get excuses that "our staff is trained". There seems to be an ongoing issue with lack of supervision.
Because ongoing issues with the teacher Ms. Suh, have not resulted in any improvements, I requested to Donna that my son be moved to the other toddler class and out of her care. During this process, I had inquired to the Ventura location to begin a transfer process, as I no longer trusted my son to be in their care, and in doing so, I found that Donna had gone to the Ventura site to come up with some sort of scheme and I was told their was a waiting list. My husband requested the background check process on these teachers, but Donna gave him the run around, stating she would fax it to him, then days later she tells him that she does not have to provide him with anything per Corporate Office. Time after time, I sent e-mails and requested a call from the district manager Jennifer Rice, but she avoided all calls and e-mails and never responded. Corporate office never returned my husbands messages either.
Two weeks later, I was not aware as I was working, my husband did call corporate highly upset after getting the run around with Donna, the acting director of the Camarillo Center, but the fact is that his statements were misconstrued and not written correctly by the receptionist accuratley, or another sheme construed by Donna!
Despite this matter at hand, The issue remains that we were lied to by Donna, on all aspects regarding our treatment of our son, not addressing all of our concerns, and we have been getting the run around from Donna, she told us several different excuses and my issues have still not been addressed. Donna stated that Jennifer Rice was on Vacation, but we found she went on vacation several weeks later after our complaints were filed. So Donna lied and I am highly upset that this would come from her as I trusted in her, especially as she is acting as center director for our children! Upon our arrival to pick up our son, Donna and Robert Ovalle, an Orange County District Manager, had confronted us with the issue that they are disenrolling our son, without the option to transfer, because they claim my husband sounded threatening on the phone to the corporate office. Another plot! Just because they made the decision to disenroll my son, I still was NEVER given any concern or answers to my concerns. They just bury these incidents and try to appeal them with the complaints I filed to the State of CA licensing board! And where is corporate on this? They still never returned our calls!
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