The people who oversee the preschool are trying to be as open about this incident as they possibly can. They, like everyone else, are horrified at what happened.
The incident at Centerpointe Christian Preschool started when a 2-year-old girl refused to take her nap. That's when her teacher threatened to tie her up.
All of this came to light when that same teacher, who had since left the school, shared the story during a social outing with her former colleagues, which included the girl's mother.
"The child did not go down and this person told the people there that she tied the child up with her wrists and her ankles with masking tape and then she showed them a photo of the child tied up," said Tim Hunt, a church elder.
Centerpointe Christian Preschool is part of Centerpointe Presbyterian Church. Church leaders were informed of the photo right away. They say they were shocked and have no idea what that teacher was thinking.
"No child deserves to be in anyway treated in such a way that they would be dehumanized in any way and this incident in our opinion does exactly that. So we're horrified by it. We reject it," said Mike Barris, a church pastor.
The Pleasanton Police Department has launched a criminal investigation. Investigators interviewed staff members and will try and determine if others were involved. Church leaders, meanwhile, have self-reported the incident to the Department of Social Services. They also sent a detailed letter to all the parents, scheduled a meeting with the parents for Tuesday night, and plan to suspend operations for five days to retrain the staff. A lot of attention is focused on the family of the 2-year-old girl.
"It's a private family matter for them. We're caring for them. We want to extend and we continue to extend care and are in dialogue with them, so we're doing everything we can in that regard," said Barris.
The preschool will shut down on Friday for that training and will reopen the following Wednesday.
