Emporia State and a former teacher at the Center for Early Childhood Education have denied negligence in a civil lawsuit brought by four families who say their children were abused at the center. The former teacher, Kimberly Schneider, and ESU are requesting a trial by jury, in their answers to the petition filed recently at District Court in Emporia.
The families filed a civil suit against ESU, Schneider, the CECE and Keely Persinger, who was the center’s former director, alleging the emotional and physical abuse of four children. The families are asking for $2 million in damages, according to the statement of monetary damages from the case file.
Emporia State and the CECE are represented by Assistant Attorney General and Senior Trial Counsel Shon D. Qualseth, an attorney at Thomas Warner, P.A., a Lawrence based law firm.
Kimberly Schneider is represented by Peter J. Orsi II, an attorney at Madden & Orsi, which is a firm based in Wichita.
The families are represented by Peter Goss, an attorney at the Goss Law Firm, P.C., which is a Kansas City, Missouri based firm.
The case was filed in August and the allegations stem from incidents that allegedly occurred between January and April of 2017.
Schneider filed her answer to the petition on September 27, in which she denied the allegations of abuse.
ESU and the CECE were granted an extension by Goss and filed their response on October 20. “Defendant Schneider’s alleged actions were not reported to ESU,” according to their answer to the petition.
A separate investigation conducted in April by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, in conjunction with the Department of Children and Families, found that seven of the 12 employees at the CECE witnessed acts of abuse and did not report to their supervisors. The investigation found multiple instances of child abuse, including verbal, physical and emotional abuse, according to the KDHE website.
Schneider and Persinger are no longer employed by ESU. Persinger resigned before KDHE completed its investigation, according to Goss.
