SKIATOOK, Okla. — Multiple parents, guardians, and ex-employees are letting their voices be heard regarding Lakeview Early Learning Academy, a daycare in Skiatook.

FOX23 has been following the claims and investigating the daycare.

After hundreds of Facebook comments, pictures, videos, and interviews, hearing the allegations against this daycare was difficult.

“Horrendous, absolutely horrendous,” said Elysia Pameticky, a concerned mom.

“It’s a horrible experience,” said Natalie McBroom, another concerned mom.

Those are the feelings that some of the moms shared with FOX23 after dealing with the daycare at the Lakeview Early Learning Academy.

Pameticky was one of the first moms to have her child attend the daycare. She said her son started in fall 2019.

“This place was amazing, we got to go in, we got to tour it. The way Stephanie talked about it, she was a NICU nurse so she could handle all the kids health-wise. That was one of my biggest concerns, they are outside Skiatook, away from an ambulance so it made me feel better that there was a nurse there,” Pameticky said.

Then Pameticky said that changed after learning that her child was one of many allegedly abused at the daycare

“It’s not right, I left him in there way too long, longer than I should have,” Pameticky said.

She said it never crossed her mind that they would be like that toward children.

“But they absolutely are and they allowed it to go on. If it wasn’t for ex-employees saying get your kid out now, get your kid out now, I would have eventually pulled him, but they are the ones that really got me to pull him out of there and I’m so grateful for them,” Pameticky said.

As a parent, she said you shouldn’t have to worry about things like this at a daycare and she doesn’t want this to happen to any other child.

“They don’t need to be around children again ever. They’re disgusting,” Pameticky said.

One mom told FOX23 that things were so bad at the daycare that she is now a stay-at-home mom and no longer trusts anyone to watch her kids.

“The staff there I will never trust with my kids, especially Stephanie and Rick. My oldest is 4. They are supposed to have safe sleep, but I don’t see that because my daughter ended up having a black eye when I went to pick her up and she said the shelf poked it. Well, it wouldn’t leave a black eye,” McBroom said.

Months later, she said there was another incident, which was the one she said was the final straw.

“Me and my husband as usual around 5:00, she got slapped in the face. I called Stephanie as soon as it happened and she said she would go there and take the report,” McBroom said.

McBroom said it happened all because her daughter stepped on a toy.

“So, I was very anxious and my husband looked at me very mad and I asked myself why would you have toys on the ground if you didn’t want them to step on them,” McBroom said.

She said as far as she knew, there wasn’t a consequence for the worker who was back at work the next day.

“I don’t understand why somebody would ever hurt something so precious like that. I mean my twins are only one, babies, they don’t know anything. It was over a toy,” McBroom said.

McBroom told her sister, Katelyn Wikel, about her daughter being slapped.

Concerned, Wikel went to social media to see if any other moms had concerns about their kids attending Lakeview.

She posted a message on Facebook asking if anyone had issues with the daycare.

The responses back were overwhelming.

“I had so many people private message me about issues that they’ve had about the daycare, with the owners and they’ve sent all the proof, I have over 300 comments, multiple shares. So many people are not wanting to reach out and do this because they are scared,” Wikel said.

Wikel shared a three-page document with FOX23 of 53 complaints of things that have happened at the daycare. From mistreatment to parent testimonies all from a previous employee who wanted to remain anonymous.

According to the report, at one point Rick wrapped a 2-year-old in a blanket, roughly placed him into the crib, helped him down on his stomach, and kept yelling at him to stop moving. The kid was screaming, crying, and sweating. It said Rick didn’t stop until Stephanie told him to.

Wikel said she has known both Stephanie and Rick from her childhood. She said she never had any issues with them.

“It’s just really upsetting because I know that they weren’t like this when I knew them. Hanging out with their older daughter, she is nothing like them so I just never had any idea at all. They just totally went downhill is what it seems like,” Wikel said.

She said as a mother she was devastated to hear that so many kids had been hurt at the daycare.

“I would hope that this place gets shut down, that they can never be around kids again, not have a daycare license,” Wikel said.

Neither of the daycare owners or workers have been charged with any crimes related to the complaints. The moms FOX23 spoke to all stand by what they say occurred

FOX23′s Paris Rain and Devyn Lyon look into allegations made by parents and former employees against Lakeview Early Learning Academy in Skiatook.

FOX23 has more on the investigation and what they have done legally to try and get this daycare shut down.

It’s important to say that the owners of the daycare have not been charged or convicted of any crime related to the claims coming against them.

FOX23 has reached out to the owners via phone call and email.

FOX23 made sure they were aware of the claims and our coverage and this is what they sent to us:

“The owner and director are aware of the malicious stories circulating regarding the quality of care that their children have allegedly received. We would like to assure the public that all our staff are held to the highest standards and accountability. Any staff member that fails to consistently meet our expectations will be terminated.

We only ever want to provide and maintain an environment that allows all children to thrive and succeed. All claims made to the contrary are investigated by DHS, and we are always working with this agency to ensure that we meet their expectations, as well. The current staff, director, and owners are not interested in communicating any further on this issue.”

So we also sat down with one of the former employees of this daycare who had her children there as well.

Here’s part of our interview with Jessica Kimsey:

“I had two children there, who were 4 and 1 at the time, and I worked in the infant class. They would constantly tell us to turn infants under a year over on their stomachs because it would make them sleep longer, or to cover infants and children’s faces with blankets because it would help them sleep longer, or to go against parents’ needs and wishes regarding, medication if they wanted them to have Tylenol or Ibuprofen, if they wanted them to be on real food or a bottle, if the parents wanted a pacifier or sippy cup. They thought they were like God. Looking back now and thinking about both of my kids and what they experienced, it’s super upsetting, sorry. What I experienced with another teacher there was absolutely traumatizing and I think about it a lot because DHS really put the fear of God in me and my other co-teacher because we weren’t allowed to talk about it while it was being investigated. We just didn’t say anything to the parents and I feel really bad for them now and I wish we could have reached out,” Kimsey said.

When it comes to oversight over daycares in the state, that runs through the Department of Human Services.

Lakeview did say they were fully compliant with DHS.

FOX23 looked into this process and pulled some of the files for this daycare from DHS’ website.

When we first heard the claims made against Lakeview, we looked through their compliance reports on the OKDHS website.

Any parent can look over daycare reports and grades with OKDHS on the website.

The former employee, Kimsey, and another parent, Sara White, said they had filed reports with DHS involving the way kids were being treated at the daycare.

“I wish I could’ve done more. I tried but I didn’t know what to do, I tried I reached out to DHS, I reached out to our assistant program, nothing happened though,” White said.

On the DHS website, FOX23 saw Lakeview received visits by case workers for both periodic routine and complaint reasons, nothing out of the ordinary for a daycare.

The check-ins date back to 2022 and look into all areas of compliance that DHS gives as guidelines to their daycares.

Lakeview has never missed more than one area of compliance according to DHS.

Despite this, two complaints were substantiated, one in 2023 and another last November.

The most recent from two months ago says the complaint was made that a “teacher hit child on head causing child to fall and caused injury to child,”

DHS substantiated the claim and put in place a plan to correct it, which involved firing that employee and training employees on disciplinary actions.

Lakeview has stated they always work with DHS, but the ex-employee said that is not true.

“Anytime I questioned a DHS rule since I knew rules from working at other daycares, they would say, ‘it’s different working in Osage County, Osage County has different rules so we do it like this,’” Kimsey said.

Despite these claims, Lakeview is still graded as a five-star academy by DHS. That means they can get the most money per child in their care from the state agency, even though they’re not accredited.

However, any facility with a five-star grade does not have to go through the accreditation process, something parents with concerns want to see changed.

This issue around accrediting daycares is something new leadership at DHS has started to work on.

There are efforts to make accreditation a requirement for all daycares in Oklahoma and to change the way in which they are graded.

That will be decided by the state legislature this spring.

We have done another investigation on the way DHS grades daycares in Oklahoma, which can be found by clicking here.

This week, we saw a listing, the Lakeview Learning Academy daycare is listed for sale by the owners.

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