STARKE, Fla. – A Bradford County day care had its license suspended Friday after an ongoing investigation by the Starke Police Department, which has been working with the Department of Children and Families.
In a letter, DCF said The Bradford Preschool and Learning Center is prohibited from serving children until further notice.
Bradford Preschool has been under police investigation since August 2021. Police did not specify what sparked the investigation.
According to police, the investigation revealed multiple code violations through video footage.
News4JAX did a story on this back in 2015 when a woman was accused of cruelty towards a child, which is a third-degree felony. Those charges were later dropped, court records show.
Recently, a mother of a 2-year-old filed a police report after her son was allegedly pushed by a staff member at the facility in early June, which caused police officers to reopen an investigation into the day care for the fifth time, WCJB reported.
Makala Proctor said she was picking up her son from the Bradford Preschool when she saw an administrator act aggressively with her child during nap time.
“When we walked in the classroom, he picked his head up to try to get up and he turned around and looked and saw that it was myself and his father. She grabbed the back of his neck and pushed his head down. It happened so fast,” Proctor said. “She had done it a total of three times, and at the third time, when he actually tried to get up and she pushed his head back down, she snatched his leg from under him.”
The child did not sustain any injuries from the incident, but Proctor said “he does do a lot of flinching. Now, that was something that we did not see before this situation. He does not like to be left around people that he doesn’t know either. He’s only two.”
Proctor said she is happy the day care has been shut down and wants justice for her child.
“They’ve had previous incidents. I wish it wouldn’t have taken this long for it to actually happen,” Proctor said.
DCF provided parents and caretakers of the children at the day care with letters pertaining to alternate day care services, the Starke Police Department said.