'It's horrifying': Minnesota lawmaker proposes having cameras in daycares after recent allegations

At the Lil Explorers Daycare in Plymouth, a teacher in a class of toddlers 
is seen yelling at kids and roughly handling them.

“Get up, put those toys away now!” she shouts at the youngsters. “I don’t 
care; sit down; you are not listening.”

“She was just super upset,” recalled Yanni Thomas,  a former assistant 
teacher. “She definitely was unhinged and was out of control.”

As KSTP reported Friday, the daycare’s owners say the people involved are 
no longer employed there.

An investigation into allegations of mistreatment at the daycare is now 
underway, but the facility still has its license.   

Meanwhile, at a home-based daycare in South St. Paul, a little boy ingests 
a substance in a bathroom.

A drug test reveals the child had high levels of amphetamines and 
methamphetamines in his system.

“A 3-year-old should not ingest meth,” declared Victoria Kane, the boy’s 
mother.

That daycare’s license is currently suspended, with the Minnesota 
Department of Human Services saying there’s an ‘imminent risk of harm.’

South St. Paul Police say the case is now in the hands of Lakeville 
authorities due to a possible ‘conflict of interest’ — the daycare is 
licensed to a public official.  

“It’s horrifying,” said Representative Nolan West (R-Blaine).

After incidents like these, he has an idea.

“Requiring daycare centers to have cameras in areas of toddlers and 
infants,” West explained. “Once they’re older than that, a child might be 
able to tell you what’s going on.”

In the Plymouth case, Thomas, 18, posted videos of what was happening on 
the internet after reporting her concerns to the daycare director five 
times with no results.

Representative Dave Pinto (DFL-St. Paul) says he saw that video and is 
concerned.

“We want to make sure every child is safe and is thriving,” he said. 
“Certainly, it’s a concerning and distressing thing to see what was going 
on in that classroom.”

“What we see in Plymouth, too, that’s more video, that’s how you hold 
people accountable,” West added.

For the Blaine Republican lawmaker, this is personal.

His daughter Sibyl is one of several alleged victims of child abuse at the 
Small World Learning Center in Blaine.

Police say two former staffers face court hearings on assault of a child 
and other charges.

Investigators say in one case, an infant’s leg was broken.

“As a new parent, we didn’t really understand, our baby had some bruises, 
but you know, kids get bruises, no that’s not true,” West noted. “Kids get 
bruises, but immobile young infants should not be getting bruises, and 
that’s one of the things I’m actually working to educate people on.”

Then there’s Janice DeGonga.

She said last summer, her now 1-year-old daughter, also at Small World 
Learning Center, kept coming home with bruises.

“She kept having bruises,” she recalled. “They kept saying they were 
having issues feeding her.”

After she brought her child to the hospital, staffers there called police, 
who launched an investigation.  

She also believes it’s a good idea to have cameras inside daycares — 
including for training purposes.    
 
“I absolutely believe that daycares need to have footage and keep it for 
much longer,” she explained. “To see exactly what is going on that could 
be causing these marks, especially if it’s just an accident and it doesn’t 
turn out to be automatic child abuse.”

West is proposing that any video records be held for 90 days.

He says that the Small World Learning Center had cameras but only kept the 
video for a week.

West is also calling for a one-year mandatory sentence for those convicted 
of malicious treatment of a child.

He also hopes pamphlets explaining signs of child abuse can be distributed 
to Minnesota hospitals to help educate new parents.

“We have a lot of issues around abuse in daycare settings,” he said. “What 
makes it worse is 99.9% of the daycare employees are wonderful people, and 
it’s such a small sliver, but it’s still something we can’t tolerate with 
our kids.”

https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/its-horrifying-minnesota-lawmaker-
proposes-having-cameras-in-daycares-after-recent-allegations/