New Jersey Kiddie ‘Fight Club’ Daycare Mom Eliana Meira Rantz Speaks Out About Lightbridge Academy
A distraught mother, Eliana Meira Rantz, is speaking out about the New Jersey daycare center who held kiddie “fight club” bouts. The daycare is where she sent her two little children last year.
According to the New York Daily News, Rantz, of Linden, New Jersey, said she is now working part time and staying home with her kiddos, adding that “you can’t trust anybody.”
“It’s just quite shocking,” she told the news site on Wednesday, September 2. “I’m now staying home with the kiddos and working part time. You can’t trust anybody.”
The reported kiddie fights took place at the Lightbridge Academy in Cranford, and were reportedly shared on Snapchat. Rantz says she cant believe that her sons, Izzy, 3, and Uri, 19 months, were involved in something so disturbing.
“He’s quite verbal,” Rantz said of Izzy. “I imagine that if he saw anything (like toddlers fighting) he would probably have come home and told me.”
NJ daycare workers accused of running kiddie “fight club” https://t.co/icL3j0gdJa
— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) September 2, 2015
As the Inquisitr previously reported, two of the daycare workers, Erica Kenny, 22, and Chanese White, 28, of Roselle, were arrested and charged with fourth-degree child abuse for allegedly forcing children participate in the kiddie “fight club” inside the Khaki Kangaroo and Brown Bear classrooms.
Union County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Michael Sheets said that the workers initiated the brawls on at least one day in August, and recorded it on their smartphones, sending clips of the fights to their friends through the app Snapchat. The police said that at least a dozen kids, between the ages of four to six, could be seen in the videos. None of the children apparently suffered any serious injuries.
“I am so sad for all the parents who had children involved,” Lindsey Bengivenga Klimuc, another former parent of the daycare facility, told NJ.com. “I hope these awful people get what they deserve.”
Rantz recalled her and her husband Zvi’s decision to put their boys in daycare. She said they looked at five other facilities before settling on Lightbridge Academy, which she described as super clean and friendly.
“Even though it was more expensive we sent our children there because we wanted our kids to be taken care of,” the couple said.
The officials at the daycare center issued a statement following the incident. Below is an excerpt.
“As parents and caregivers, we are shocked and saddened by this isolated incident and we have assisted the prosecutor’s ?office from the start of its investigation into this matter. While no children were physically harmed during this incident, we have a zero tolerance policy for anyone who acts in conflict with the core value of Lightbridge Academy – the safety and well-being of children. We terminated the employment of these staff members and have maintained open communication with our parents throughout this process. The actions of these two individuals do not reflect the culture of Lightbridge Academy and what we have stood for more than 18 years. While we will continue to fully support and assist the prosecutor’s office, we remain focused on the education and well-being of all children in our care.”
[Photo via Shutterstock]
