LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – A Henderson daycare worker has been fired after she was accused of abusing a 3-year-old girl in the classroom. A co-worker reported her to police. Video of the incident caught on the school’s surveillance camera has gone viral online after it was shared by the girl’s parents. Now other parents and even a former teacher are coming forward to FOX5 with similar stories.
The video shows a classroom full of toddlers at seated at three tables, two teachers watching them. At the bottom of the screen, a three-year-old girl crawls into frame. One teacher notices and grabs her, yanking her out the classroom door and out of view of the camera. The other teacher, clearly stunned, quit on the spot and called police. A Henderson officer called the girl’s parents asking if they wanted to press charges.
“I was at work on Friday. I got a phone call from Henderson PD saying the someone had called in for a child abuse case,” explained Kayla Zomerdyk about how she learned something terrible had happened to her daughter Lilly at daycare.
“I went into the daycare having no idea what I was walking into,” Zomerdyk recounted. Zomerdyk says the director of DJ’s Christian Preschool/ Daycare showed her the video.
“She justifies her behavior because she was stressed out… she yanked her, yanked her neck back. She could have really hurt her. She could have dislocated her shoulder… then she takes her outside around the corner so we don’t see on video what happens, but my daughter starts screaming and yelling, so after seeing the video I knew I wanted to move forward with pressing charges against the teacher,” Zomerdyk reported. Lilly’s dad, Nashawn Royal, had picked their daughter up from daycare before police had called.
“By the time I got home, mom called me and she mentioned, ‘Hey go watch the video.’ I couldn’t finish it obviously,” Royal recalled.
“She didn’t apologize, she didn’t say that the teacher was going to get fired, she didn’t suspend the teacher. She let her finish out the day in the classroom with my daughter. That right there is completely inappropriate. It is your job as a daycare owner and provider to make sure that all the children in that establishment are safe,” Zomerdyk argued.
Breanna Meyers says her daughter Icelynn was also enrolled at DJ’s and on August 26th, 2022, the day after she turned one, something was clearly wrong.
“I got the worst call of my life… my dad is calling me saying she is inconsolable crying,” Meyers remembered.
“She came home in a different onesie and it was one from the daycare,” Meyers recalled. When Meyers took it off, she says she found bruises in the shape of a handprint.
“I immediately screamed for my father who was in the living room, ‘Am I seeing what I am seeing?,’” Meyers questioned. Meyers went to police and filed a report but says nothing ever came of it.
“She has lifelong psychological damages… She is so terrified being in daycares that whenever she is in daycares, she actually bites other kids, and we haven’t been able to get her to stop,” Meyers revealed. Not just parents came forward to FOX5, so did former employees.
“My child will never be in childcare never, never,” stated a former daycare employee who asked her face not to be shown. She says she only lasted at DJ’s a few months.
“Just like you saw Kayla’s daughter being whipped around like that, they did that in the infant room as well… It was mentally affecting me, I could not handle it anymore, so I quit,” the former employee admitted.
She says the school always wanted to keep anything negative under wraps and she even got in trouble for reaching out to one parent.
“They wanted to see my texts during the day. They wanted to confiscate my phone in the office. They just wanted to keep everything hush… I feel guilty that I didn’t advocate more, that I didn’t just go on a rampage and start calling parents and telling, ‘Hey this is what is really going on,’” the employee confessed. The former teacher did call one parent when she left, that parent also spoke with FOX5.
“She was just like, ‘Hey um I am not going to be working there anymore but I wanted you to know what they were doing to (daughter’s name withheld). They are grabbing her really roughly,’” the parent who also wished to remain anonymous told FOX5.
“She was only barely two… So, she could talk at this point but not enough where she could come home and say, ‘Hey mommy, my teacher is grabbing my face,’” the parent shared.
The parent immediately pulled her daughter from the preschool but decided not to file a police report because she was told by an officer “without proof or bruises an investigation would go nowhere.”
The director of DJ’s preschool tells a much different story. FOX5 spoke to her on the phone after learning about Lilly’s case. She says she fired the teacher the same day what happened to Lilly was reported to police. She says she’s been in the daycare industry for 30 years and this is not something she takes lightly.
As for three-year-old Lilly, her parents took her to the emergency room after seeing the classroom video. She had no major physical injuries, but they say she has been traumatized and do plan on getting her into therapy. They, like the other parents, and the former teacher all want the school shutdown.
“Nobody’s baby is safe there, so we need to stop this daycare from doing these things to these innocent babies,” Zomerdyk demanded.
“One hundred percent I think that their school needs to be shut down,” the anonymous teacher agreed. “Even if my daughter is not going to get justice through the legal system, as long as they are closed every other child does,” Meyers contended.
FOX5 first reached out to the daycare last week. After a short conversation, FOX5 was referred to their attorney. We tried the daycare again this week to ask about the new allegations. We were told “no comment” and whoever answered the phone hung up.
We also reached out to the attorney the daycare referred us to through emails and calls at least four times. We have not gotten a response.
Lilly’s mom says she would like to see charges filed as soon as possible but has been told by investigators it could take months.
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