‘Every parent’s nightmare’: Alleged assaults at a daycare in Spruce Grove under investigation

Mounties say they're investigating four assault claims at the Little Stars daycare in Spruce Grove. CTV News Edmonton's Nav Sangha has the story.

Parkland RCMP were called about an alleged assault that happened at the Little Stars Montessori Early Learning Center in Spruce Grove last week.

“The management of the daycare were made aware of these alleged assaults, they notified the families of the victims and then those families notified our police station,” said Cst. Brody Dyson, with the Parkland RCMP.

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Police said there are four victims in the alleged assaults that were reported to them between March 6 and 12. The assaults took place on Feb. 19, RCMP said.

“They are children and they did go to that daycare,” said Dyson.

“I try not to think about it because then I get upset,” said Morgan, a parent of one of the alleged victims.

She said she was contacted by the daycare on Friday.

“They asked us to come in and they showed us these incident reports, so they walked us through the three different incident reports and then they showed us the videos,” she said.

In the first video, Morgan said her one-year-old son was climbing a bookcase. He was picked up by the upper arm and lifted up off the floor and left in a corner.

In the second video, she described seeing someone off camera grab her son, again by the upper arm, and pull him down “really hard to the floor.”

“Then another incident where they grabbed his head, albeit it was gently, but lifted it up slightly then pushed him back, again off camera,” she said.

Morgan said the last video showed her son sitting in a high-chair, left to watch the other children eat.

“He didn’t get fed until all the other children were fed,” said Morgan.

RCMP said it is aware of videos but would not disclose any information about the nature of assaults being investigated or if injuries were reported.

Morgan said she had her son checked out by a doctor and so far he’s OK.

We have follow-ups to make sure that he continues to be OK and we’re waiting to go and get taken for blood work to also make sure that there’s nothing else going on," she added.

Morgan said the daycare told her two employees have since been fired.

RCMP would not confirm how many suspects are part of the investigation.

Little Stars Montessori did not confirm how many staff members were involved but said “the staff that was involved in mishandling children” were fired immediately and the daycare changes its policy on child safety “right away.”

“We have a safety plan in place and we closed Room A for now untill everything calms down,” CEO Razia Qarni told CTV News Edmonton.

“It’s every parent’s nightmare,” said Morgan. “You put your child into these daycare facilities expecting them to be safe, to find out they’re not safe.”

Her son started at the daycare in December, the same one her three-year-old daughter attended.

“She’d had great experiences with a lot of the teachers there, but a lot of the teachers that she had no longer work there,” said Morgan. “I was expecting our youngest to have the same experience.”

Police said the investigation is still in the early stages but are asking any other parents whose children attended the daycare and suspect they may be potential victims to contact them.

“We don’t know how many, if any, more people are out there who were victims,” said Dyson.

Morgan said she is now looking for a new daycare.

“I think that it’s going to take us a really long time to be able to trust anybody to take care of our children again, and we have to because we’re both working,” she said.

A probationary licence has been issued to the daycare due to “safety concerns,” temporarily removing their ability to care for infants, the province said in a news release Thursday evening.

The licence will expire June 12. Removal of the program will affect seven children. The province says Child Care Licensing is closely monitoring the program.

Families looking for alternative child-care options can call Child Care Connect at 1-844-644-5165.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Nav Sangha