An Oakland daycare owner has been banned from working with children in California again after using cruel punishment on children in her care.
Cynthia Jackson Burns spanked, whipped and inflicted ‘corporal punishment’ on young children in her care at the SmallTrans Bears daycare in downtown Oakland, according to state investigators he wrote in a report.
He also allegedly allowed other staff members at his center to verbally and physically abuse children.
Regulators later suspended her license and shut down the daycare in July, and a criminal investigation into Jackson Burns’ actions is currently underway.
Cynthia Jackson Burns has been banned from working with children again after California state regulators found she inflicted cruel punishment on babies in her care.
The parents were first alerted to the alleged abuse via an anonymous text message.
She said: ‘Children are being pinched, thrown around, grabbed aggressively and their belongings are also being thrown around.’
Staff were also accused of punishing crying children by hitting them with their bare hands, using a wooden spoon or spanking them with wet towels and leaving them alone in a dark bathroom. according to the San Francisco Standard.
Jackson Burns also allegedly once drew blood by punching a girl in the mouth and pressured an employee to lie that the girl had fallen, said the anonymous texter, later revealed to be a father.
The author of the text went on to say that if Jackson Burns didn’t like a child, he would give him cold food.
Within days of parents receiving the text messages, most of the daycare’s several dozen families pulled their children out.
Jackson Burns then attempted to stem the tide in a virtual meeting where he blamed the allegations on someone trying to ruin the nursery’s reputation, such as a disgruntled former staff member, the Standard reports.
Cynthia Jackson Burns spanked, whipped and inflicted “corporal punishment” on young children in her care at the SmallTrans Bears daycare in downtown Oakland, investigators found.
But the first signs of trouble actually began two years earlier, shortly after Jackson Burns took over a long-standing daycare center.
State regulators had received complaints that staff members were being disrespectful and physically rough with children, but after interviewing Jackson Burns, other employees and parents, the Division of Community Care and Licensing reported in August 2022 that it could not substantiate the claims.
Still, informal complaints continued to appear on parenting forums and online review sites.
One mother, who gave the center one star, said she chose the facility because of the “convenient location and promising initial impression.”
“The owner, Cynthia, seemed friendly and my daughter was excited about the space and toys. However, our experience was quickly ruined when my daughter revealed that she had been spanked by a teacher.”
She claimed Jackson Burns then deflected blame by saying the boy needed therapy, which “raised additional red flags” and showed “a lack of understanding.”
Anonymous texts from earlier this summer arrived soon after, naming enough staff members that parents could find out more for themselves, with junior staff helping them piece things together and offering visual clues, such as a photo of the wooden spoon allegedly used to spank toddlers.
“That really freaked me out,” one unnamed mother told The Standard, noting that the spoon was “among a bunch of stuff at the bottom, and there are some Minnie Mouse shoes next to it.”
Parents said they were shocked by the allegations, while junior staff helped them piece things together with visual clues from inside the nursery.
The Division of Licensing and Community Care, the state agency that regulates child care providers, finally stopped by for a surprise visit on June 18, but cut its visit short “due to time constraints,” the Standard reports.
When officials returned later that month, they issued four citations, including for failing to complete sleep logs to confirm that babies are monitored at frequent intervals and for failing to test for lead in drinking water.
The regulator went on to cite the daycare for even more failings in July.
She said staff were leaving children “in the toddler bathroom as punishment for misbehaving or crying”, describing such actions as an “immediate risk to the health, safety and personal rights of children in their care”.
“According to interviews, staff members hit, pushed, pulled, yelled, bullied and called children inappropriate names while in their care,” the report also found.
Children and infants slept on the floor during naps with no cribs or portable cribs available, and mandatory ratios were not met in classrooms.
One staff member was even hired without a criminal record and other staff members were unqualified.
As the criminal investigation into Jackson Burns’ actions intensifies, some parents are also considering filing civil lawsuits against the former daycare owner, the Standard reports.
Some said they didn’t know California state law gave them access to the facility, and one mother said the pandemic made her get used to keeping her distance by dropping her kids off at school at the front door.
“That probably created a blind spot for the abuse to happen,” the mother said. “And it makes me angry that the children were hurt because of that.”
DailyMail.com has contacted Jackson Burns for comment.
