Chandler preschool lied to police about teacher slapping child

Editor’s note: This story was published Oct. 1 and was updated Oct. 3 to include a statement from Sunrise Preschools.

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On a Monday afternoon in March 2024, Erin Higgins picked up her three-year-old son early from Sunrise Preschools on Elliot Road in Chandler. The school’s staff said he’d had an accident and didn’t want to be changed, but that was far from the whole story.

Once home, after a quiet, hour-long drive from Chandler to Buckeye, the young boy said something that caught her off guard.

“Mommy,” he said, pointing to his face. “A teacher hit me.”

More than a year later, Higgins and her co-parent are suing Child Development Schools, Inc., the corporate owner of the preschool chain, for negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress, among other charges. According to the lawsuit, school staff misled the boy’s parents about the nature of the incident. 

Perhaps more alarming, according to a Chandler police report referenced in the lawsuit and obtained by Phoenix New Times, is that the school’s corporate entity apparently instructed a staffer to alter her statement to police to deny that the incident happened at all.

“That’s like a parent’s worst nightmare,” Erin Higgins said, “is for someone that you trust to hit your kids.”

In a statement to New Times, Sunrise Preschools said: “A thorough internal review by Sunrise Preschools reflects that our team coached the school director to provide an updated statement that represented the truth of the situation. Honesty and transparency are fundamental to our relationships with the children and families we serve, and their physical and emotional well-being continues to be our highest priority. While we cannot comment further on ongoing litigation, we remain committed to ensuring the truth is fully understood as the matter proceeds.”

Sunrise Preschools has 20 locations throughout the Valley, and its parent company runs more than 260 child care centers across 11 states. It provides care and instruction for infants to pre-kindergartners and also offers after-school programs for school-aged children.

At the time of the incident, Higgins’ son had attended the Chandler location for only two days. The boy’s father, Jason Higgins — he and Erin are divorced — initially enrolled his son and daughter in another Sunrise Preschool but transferred them to the Chandler location to be closer to his home. When he picked up his daughter that day, after Erin had retrieved their son earlier, he asked school director Michelle Hill if a teacher had hit his son. 

Hill said no and characterized the boy as “the aggressor.” However, according to the police report, Hill’s story would change several more times.

“I don’t understand why she didn’t tell me this,” Jason Higgins said of Hill. “What’s your excuse for not being just upfront and honest with me?” 

Changing accounts

According to the police report, a day after the incident, an anonymous caller notified the Department of Child Safety about a teacher smacking the young boy. Because the teacher had no familial relationship with the child, the complaint was passed along to the Chandler Police Department.

Per the report, Chandler officer Kyle Jordan spoke to Hill and the boy’s teacher, Jaylene Takala, at the school the day following the incident. He spoke first to Hill, who told him that she witnessed Takala slap the boy. At the time, Takala was taking him to another classroom to change his diaper. He was kicking and screaming and when Takala bent down to ask him to cooperate, the boy slapped her, “knocking her glasses from her face,” the report says.

Takala immediately slapped the boy “on the mouth or cheek,” according to Hill’s account in the police report. In shock, Takala stood up and stated, “I can’t believe I just did that.” Hill told the officer that she was standing in the room when it happened and didn’t know what to do. According to the police report, Hill said Erin and Jason Higgins “were contacted about the incident but were purposely not fully advised what occurred.”

However, when Jordan spoke with Takala, she flatly denied hitting the child, stating instead that she used her forearm to block the boy from slapping her a second time and did not make contact with his face. Hill then informed the officer that while the school has live cameras in the classrooms, “the new video system does not record so this incident was not captured on video.” That turned out to be false.

Nearly two weeks later, police obtained video footage of the incident in response to a warrant. The video featured a black “privacy box” meant to obscure the changing table from view, although the box in question was in fact not near the changing table at all. Instead, it was positioned in a way that almost entirely obscured the alleged slapping incident from view. “The majority of the incident is suspiciously blocked out by the ‘privacy’ box,” wrote Chandler officer David Kultala in the police report. In its statement to New Times, Sunrise Preschools said the black box is positioned to cover the door of the bathroom since the changing table is obscured from the camera’s view by a wall.

What can be seen lines up with the timeline of Hill’s initial story. Takala brings the boy, who is resisting her, into the room. At one point, the boy’s “left hand reach(es) out to his side and then upwards towards where Jaylene’s face/head would likely be as she is bent over,” the report reads. Shortly after, the boy’s “body jerks backwards as if he was being hit or slapped” and Takala’s glasses fall to the ground.

According to the report, Hill is visible in the video looking in the direction of Takala and the boy. After the alleged slap, Hill “turns to walk away and out of the room.” Takala continues changing the boy’s diaper, during which Hill and another employee enter the room and appear “to inspect (the boy’s) face while he is on the changing table.”

Kultala wrote that Sunrise’s parent company provided police with other documents, including written statements from Hill and Takala. Takala’s statement echoed her initial story to the police, reiterating that she didn’t slap the boy. However, Hill’s statement had changed to mirror Takala’s while claiming that she didn’t see the incident directly. “This is contradictory to what she told Officer Jordan and this is also contradictory to what was observed in the video,” Kultala wrote.

When Kultala called Hill to ask her about the discrepancy, she said that “this whole thing was eating her up” and admitted that “the hit did happen.” She also said the company’s management ordered her to revise her statement to remove the part where Takala hit the boy. Hill declined to name the supervisor who gave her that instruction but did say that “she would not feel comfortable having her grandchild attend the daycare.”

When reached over the phone, Hill directed New Times to corporate and said she wouldn’t give out any information before hanging up. Takala did not respond to New Times’ request to comment. It’s not clear if Takala was disciplined, though her LinkedIn still says she works at Sunrise Preschools.

Trust issues

At the end of the Chandler police investigation, detectives concluded that “it is likely the juvenile victim was hurt by Jaylene in some fashion” and recommended a single charge of class 5 felony child abuse against Takala. However, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute. New Times asked the county attorney for an explanation as to why, but has not received a response.

Jason Higgins said his son “never had issues” before the incident. Now, Erin added, “he does. He’s traumatized by certain situations, and it’s hard for him to focus and do a lot in preschool because he has a hard time trusting adults that he does not know.” 

Since the incident, their son has “endured persistent fear, anguish and profound fear of attending school,” according to their legal complaint. Now four years old, the boy attends a different preschool in Buckeye, where both of his parents now live. However, he still distrusts adults and is now on an Individualized Education Plan.

The boy’s parents have trust issues of their own.

“We trust the childcare. We trust the people that are taking care of our kids while we’re at work,” Erin Higgins said. “If we’re asking you a specific question about an incident, I want you to tell me the truth so we can proceed to the next step or whatever we need to do to assist our son. So the lies are what really killed me.”

Now, the Higginses are suing Sunrise Preschools and seeking monetary damages for medical care — both past, future and present. (What medical care the boy requires is not clear. The police report notes both parents told police he was not physically damaged, though the incident has been emotionally traumatizing.)

The suit is being led by attorney Sheree Wright, who is notably representing five current and former employees of the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury in employment disputes. Wright is also pressing a different case against Sunrise Preschools over a May 2022 incident at a Mesa location in which a staffer allegedly yanked a young girl into a desk, causing a severe cut on her forehead. 

In that case, Sunrise staff initially told the child’s parents that their daughter had been injured when she tripped on a toy. However, a Mesa police report from that incident says the school called the parents soon after the incident to apologize and inform them that the staffer in question had been fired.