A daycare at a Texas YMCA inside an elementary school is being sued for child abuse.
A worker there is accused of hurting and yelling at three toddlers.
The lawsuit says the YMCA knew about this abuse but didn’t tell the state or the kids’ parents like they’re supposed to.
They even kept the worker on staff. That worker has now been arrested, charged with crimes, and fired.
The families’ lawyer is angry about what happened and says the YMCA is to blame.
He wants to make sure this never happens again.
The YMCA says they fired the worker and called the police, child protective services, and the parents as soon as they saw proof of the abuse.
They say keeping kids safe is their top priority and they always do background checks on their workers.
The abuse was discovered when school staff were searching for a missing shoe and watched video recordings. They saw the daycare worker using inappropriate and unsafe ways of disciplining the children.
The video shows the worker not paying attention to the kids, grabbing one child’s arm and making her sit down. When that child cried, the worker grabbed her throat and shook her.
The video also shows the worker grabbing other kids by the neck, spinning them around, and throwing them to the ground. It seems other children were treated this way too.
The lawsuit also says the child who was choked often had unexplained bruises and scratches when she went home, and the YMCA couldn’t explain how she got them. The investigation found that this kind of abuse was happening regularly at the daycare. The lawsuit also mentions that the daycare has had safety problems in the past.