I'm a parent in Arlington, and I don't know much about LAA, but I have to say this incident doesn't sound THAT scary horrible to me. The employee should have been fired, and she was. The center should have reported it, and they did. I do think the parents should have been notified, just so that they didn't find out on DCUM -- for the sake of openness and good communication within the community. But the child wasnt hit or sexually assaulted. The teacher put her legs over the child during nap time. I'm not endorsing what the teacher did, but the suggestions above that people withdraw their children from the center seem really extreme to me.

Anonymous wrote:Is it true that they didn't fire the employee just switched her to the other campus? I am asking because I know my child's teacher for the upcoming school year used to be at the cherrydale campus where the incident took place.

False. My second child is at LAA. We know the staffer involved and she is no longer with the school. I do agree that kids should not be forced to nap but that is ARL county rules, not LAAs. The director is lovely. I am very happy to answer questions. FWIW, I do not think the staff is at all lazy. I have hired 3 or 4 of them as babysitters over the years; all great.

Director does have major attitude but the rest of the staff is excellent. As for pulling my child..where? There are waitlist every preschool in Arlington and D.C. However, if I feel my child isn't treated well I will pull her no question.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I don't understand why we were notified of the incident. Does anyone know the policy regarding this.

Why would you feel the need to be notified? The school learned of it, reported it, fired the person who did it and did refresher training for their other employees. Unless it was your child, what are you going to do about it? And if it was your child, would you really want the whole school gossiping about it? I'm sure if the parents of the child in the video were unhappy with LAA's response, you all would have heard about it by now.

You are clearly the director, and if I had my kid there I'd pull him so fast because of your attitude.

I am stunned that people are OK with sending their kids to a place where this happened. You have other options...why not exercise them?

Is it true that they didn't fire the employee just switched her to the other campus? I am asking because I know my child's teacher for the upcoming school year used to be at the cherrydale campus where the incident took place.

My daughter is completing LAA and I will agree they are responsible, however nap time is a mess. There is inconsistency in the teachers. Many are lazy thus require the kids to lay there for 2-hours. There are some wonderful things about LAA and I respect the self-report, but the nap time policy needs to be addressed. I have friends who are looking for other places for their children as they don't want their 3 and 4 year olds to nap. Of course offer nap, but for those children who no longer require nap there needs to be another option.

Bump, just because they threatened to sue over the OP's use of the word "abuse" to describe the incident. Lol.

Did anyone ever find out the details of what happened here?

We've sent our kids to LAA since it was founded and we've been consistently impressed with how well they communicate with parents and with the high level of care our kids receive from staff. We looked at a number of centers in Arlington...if anything I'd say they were a little too conscientious (sometimes worrying about developmental milestones that, frankly, even I haven't reached yet). It's Arlington, after all (sigh).

My son has always been a bit rough on the playground, so we would get incident reports once a month or so where he had run into another kid, or he'd fallen off the slide while trying to demonstrate some trick wrestling move. Usually the note says something about how he or his "friend" was admonished to use "safe hands"

I don't want to downplay this incident. From what I could gather from the official report, LAA took it very seriously and responded appropriately.

But I also don't want to see their reputation dragged through the mud by anonymous online vigilantism (by the way, my name is Demian Perry and I live in Waycroft-woodlawn -- pleased to meet you!). Beyond the link to the official report, there's little here that any of us have any way of verifying.

This is a good center run by decent people who, I believe, truly love our kids. And our kids both loved going there every day and we love hearing about all they learn there each day. Our frat boy has moved on to APS, but our little one is there today. And I know she is safe and having a wonderful time.

(By the way, awesome site design. As urban mother forums go, this is definitely the best designed site in the mid-Atlantic region!)

Anonymous wrote:I'm a parent of a 4 year old at LAA and nothing has been posted regarding this.

The posting is usually just the printed report that you see on the licensing violation website.

It's usually on standard 8x11 paper and might look like just any printed document at a glance or distance. It might be located on a bulletin board of some sort that has parent communication information for the school or maybe even located near the Director's office. So check places like that for a copy of it.

The center only reported it themselves because if they didn't, the parents were going to.