UPDATE: Action News learned the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department launched an investigation at the preschool in a video that has parents very concerned. They said it revolves around inappropriate behavior between children.
Parents tell us they saw police out there last night, after our story aired. Police could not confirm if the investigation is about the incident in the video.
All they could tell us was that it was a sexual assault investigation on based on behavior between some of the children.
Kidz corporate office also told us Child Care Licensing representatives were there Friday morning.
"I wanted to know what was going on? Where was the teacher? Why were they left for so long?" said Lynette Harris-Williams, the woman who took the video of an incident in a daycare class.
Harris-Williams said she logged onto the web cameras while at work to check on her son. She was shocked when she saw what was happening to a different boy in the class. She found that boys mom and told him about what she saw.
"I put my kids there every day thinking that they're going to be safe, only to find out that something like this happens," said the boy's mother who did not want us to share her name so we're calling her 'Vicky.' "I never would have been informed had the other parent not been able to catch it."
Vicky said the manager at Kidz Preschool off Tropicana did not tell her the extent of what was going on in this video.
"She just basically told me that it was harmless play, that the girls were kind of patting him on the bottom and flipping the top of his pants," said Vicky.
She said she did not get a call from their corporate office until after Action News called them.
"Somebody from corporate should have been calling me that day letting me know what's going on," she said. "You have to sign incident reports if the kids fall down and get a bump, but there was nothing with this."
Action News called Kidz corporate office again Friday and gave them a chance to do an interview, but they declined. They did assure us they were properly staffed at the time of the incident.
Kidz corporate said their executive director came out to this location today to talk with parents and answer any questions. They also said three teachers walked out and quit today.
ORIGINAL STORY:
Parents of children at Kidz Preschool can see their children on video throughout the day.
They can log online and watch live from the cameras in the classroom. But one mom saw something she was not prepared to see.
A valley mom sent us a video of the live camera in one of the classroom at the Kidz Preschool on Tropicana Avenue.
You can see a strange interaction between three of her son's classmates.
The video shows a boy lying on the floor, and little girls pulling his pants down. You can see the girls putting their faces next to his bottom.He eventually gets up and tries to get away from the girls, but they follow him around the classroom until he stops so they can do it all over again.
That portion of the video lasts about three minutes, but the mom who filmed this off her computer screen said she did not see a teacher in the room for 20 minutes.
13 Action News went to Kidz Preschool to try and speak with someone about how this was allowed to happen.
An employee there told us the manager was on break and they did not have a contact number for her. So, we called their corporate office.
A representative at their corporate office said this incident happened during nap time while the teacher was at the door of the classroom with other children.
"People take it for granted when its nap time," said one elementary school parent and former preschool teacher.
"They don't have to really watch the kids, but you still do at all times."
"That's not good at all, not good at all," said a dad whose children went to Kidz Preschool a couple years ago. "If I had seen that and my kid was still there, I would pull them out immediately."
Kidz Preschool corporate said the teacher for this class quit the next day. They said they spoke to all the staff at that location and sent emails to all nine of their valley locations.
We called the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health's Childcare Licensing. They had four unconfirmed complaints against Kidz Preschool on Tropicana:
October 2011: Being out of ratio
September 2013: Environmental issues (carpets dirty, mold, bathroom not working) and lack of supervision
April 2014: Employee called a child a racial slur
May 2014: Short-staffed, toddlers in infant classroom, and sometimes kids don't get to go outside.
After letting them know about this video, childcare licensing will also be looking into what happened in that instance.
