Tired of clipping all of your own coupons? Why not force a bunch of five-year-olds to do it for you? And best of all – not only do you not have to pay them, but their parents pay you!
From the you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up department comes the tale of a Kentucky day care owner who’s been arrested and charged with child abuse. It was one specific incident that got police officers’ attention, but they’re investigating a number of claims now, including one that involves her young charges cutting out grocery coupons for her.
It all started last Friday, when state police were called to the Rainbows and Lollipops child care center in Corbin, Kentucky. A relative of a two-year-old at the facility had called to report that the boy was being abused.
Police arrested the facility’s owner, 33-year-old Tracy Fore, for allegedly using the two-year-old child “as a seat”. They say she placed a bean bag on top of the boy while he was napping, and propped herself up against it while she used a computer.
That’s the only incident she’s been charged with, so far. But local media reports found this was not the first time complaints had been lodged against Fore, or the facility.
One former employee told Lexington, Kentucky’s WLEX-TV that she had witnessed some questionable behavior on Fore’s part. “I would come in and there would be five- and six-year-olds in the nursery holding the newborn babies,” she claimed. “The five- and six-year-olds would be cutting coupons for her.”
At least they’re learning the benefits of saving while they’re still young. But they were also allegedly learning to “routinely operate electrical equipment, dust, and wash tables and toys,” according to the state’s Division of Regulated Child Care, which has conducted at least a dozen investigations of the facility over the past several years. They also reported that the kitchen and classrooms were “soiled” and “infested with ants,” and that kids were disciplined by being made to lie down on the floor face first, and weren’t allowed to get up until a piece of candy was thrown at them.
Compared to all that, clipping coupons for teacher doesn’t sound quite so bad.
But all of it is pretty concerning to parents who entrusted their kids to Fore’s care. She pleaded not guilty yesterday, to a charge of criminal abuse on a child. The facility was closed with no indication of when or whether it might reopen.
“You trust people when you leave your kids with them,” Fore’s former employee told WLEX-TV. “What kind of facility is that?”
Apparently the kind of facility that teaches very young kids the value of clipping coupons and saving money – for their caregiver. But in the end, it’s their caregiver herself who may be learning a very costly lesson.
