Outraged Mother Says Toddlers Wandered Off From Daycare Center

Teachers at a Bethesda daycare center have been fired for apparently allowing a 2-year-old boy and three other toddlers to wander off unattended, ABC7 reports.

Parent Wendy Rhein said when she arrived to pick up her son just before 5 p.m., Oct. 15, at the Bethesda Lynbrook Children's Center, the boy had wandered into the neighborhood with three of his classmates and was being walked back to the facility by a good Samaritan who found the children.

"He was yelling, 'Lynbrook, Lynbrook you've lost your kids,' " Rhein told ABC7.
"That's when I saw one of his caregivers coming off the playground with one child, and I just started yelling to her, 'What happened? You lost four out of eight kids, what happened?' and she didn't even know how to answer. She just said, 'I don't know.' "

The Montgomery Child Care Association, Inc., which manages the facility, gave this statement to ABC7:

"We regret this incident occurred and have taken immediate and decisive action. We have conducted an investigation into this incident and the teachers involved have been terminated."

The director of MCCA has also ordered an audit of the school, ABC7 reported.

"The teacher wasn't even aware that they were gone," Rhein wrote in an email to Patch. "Half her class, gone. I am physically ill when I think about what could have happened to these kids ... as a storm was rolling in, outside on their own, as it was getting darker."