REPORT: Daycare teacher terminated after hurting child in her care

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - The Louisiana Department of Education is investigating after a daycare teacher in Livingston allegedly hurt a child in her care. That teacher was terminated from the Humble Hearts Early Learning Center after she is accused of grabbing a child and picking them up off the floor by the arm.

It all happened just before 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, March 8, 2023. After the child started crying and showing signs that their arm was hurt, the teacher allegedly went about her day.

The Department of Education oversees daycares across the state and they are looking into the matter after they received what’s called a “critical incident report” about the situation.

According to that report, obtained by the WAFB I-TEAM, the teacher did not tell administrators about the child’s injury until half an hour later. Once the daycare director was told about it, and after she reviewed the video of the encounter, the teacher was fired and the child’s mother was called.

The report also states that law enforcement was not contacted but the child did have to go to the doctor. Dr. Jacob Wood, a family medicine physician with Baton Rouge General, would not speak directly to this case but says arm injuries from a similar situation are likely what’s called a nursemaid’s elbow, a condition where the child’s arm is dislocated.

“It’s not serious in terms of causing some type of long-term problem but it is serious in terms of it has to be reduced and it has to be fixed. You do have to go see a physician who is trained to be able to reduce that dislocation,” said Dr. Wood.

The doctor says it needs to be addressed as soon as possible and he believes this kind of injury is hard to ignore because it will be hard to get the child to calm down.

”Generally speaking the kid’s not going to let it happen because they’re going to be in such pain and distress until it gets reduced,” Dr. Wood added.

The WAFB I-TEAM reached out to the daycare and the owner says they did everything right in the situation. The owner released the following statement to WAFB about the incident.

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