Incident investigation·November 28, 2023

On 11/28/2023, Licensing Program Analysts (LPA) Miguel Herrera conducted an unannounced case management inspection. LPA met with ERSEA Coordinator Sarah Cromwell and Director Heidi Nunes who accompanied LPA on a tour of the facility. Present during today’s inspection were 18 children. The purpose of today’s inspection was explained to ERSEA Coordinator Sarah Cromwell and Director Heidi Nunes. LPA Herrera interviewed Director Nunes regarding an incident that occurred on 10/06/2023. Director Nunes stated that she received a phone call from a concerned community member on 10/06/2023. The reporting party stated that they saw staff aggressively pull a child by the arm and hit the child on their back. The reporting party stated the incident occurred approximately at 11:00AM on 10/06/2023. Director Nunes stated that she reached out to the principal at the site to pull video footage from the playground. Director Nunes stated that she immediately contacted the Principal at Alberta Martone. Both Director Heidi and the school principal watched the video footage but did not see any inappropriate behavior occur in the video. Director Nunes observed on the video footage staff trying to line up children and tap their head for a headcount. The school principal stated that he observed staff #1 attempt to corral the children into an area of the playground to get them to line up. The principal stated that he observed some children run away from the line and staff #1 attempted to bring them back by corralling them. He also observed staff #1 tap each child on the head to count each child as they lined up. The school principal stated the tap was not in an aggressive manner. LPA Herrera asked Director Nunes and the school principal how many children and staff members were present, and they both stated that there were 14 children and 3 staff members present in the playground. The school principal stated that they had a meeting with staff because based on their observations they were concerned that only staff #1 was actively trying to get the children to line up while the other two staff members only observed staff #1 attempt to line up the children. To be continued on 809-C. Based on the interviews conducted LPA confirmed the allegations were unfounded. Exit interview conducted and report was reviewed with ERSEA Coordinator Sarah Cromwell. Appeal rights were provided. Per Title 22, Division 12, Chapter 1, of the California Code of Regulations, no deficiencies are cited. This report shall be made available to the public upon request. LIC 9213 Notice of Site Visit is provided and required to be posted for 30 days.