The former director of a State College area daycare and preschool was charged on Tuesday with child endangerment after witnesses said she aggressively grabbed and dragged children in her care.
Ferguson Township police began investigating in January after receiving a report of possible abuse by Sarah E. Yanda-Santana, 54, of York, who served as director of State College KinderCare, 228 Farmstead Lane, from November until Jan. 22, according to an affidavit of probable cause.
One witness told a detective that Yanda-Santana was seen dragging children by their arms, holding their wrists together with her hands, picking them up and throwing them on cots and holding them face down on their cots by pushing against their backs, according to the affidavit. That witness said Yanda-Santana had “issues being in rooms where the ratio of children to staff was not correct.”
On Yanda-Santana’s last day of employment, the witness said, she dragged a child by her arm to her office, closed the door and could be heard laughing loudly while the child screamed and tried to get out, the detective wrote.
A second witness said that about a week earlier she had to take a phone call and asked Yanda-Santana to cover her classroom. While on the phone, the witness looked into the room and saw Yanda-Santana pull a child by the wrist off of a stack of cots, causing the child to fall and land on their knees, according to the affidavit.
The second witness also reported seeing Yanda-Santana pull two children across the floor by their wrists, the detective wrote.
A third witness said she had seen “very aggressive touching” by Yanda-Santana, including grabbing a child by the wrists, dragging the child across the floor and in at least one incident causing bruising to the child, according to the affidavit. The witness alleged that a district supervisor told her to state in an incident report that another child caused the bruising.
Yanda-Santana is charged with one felony count of endangering the welfare of a child and one summary count of harassment.
She was arraigned on Tuesday by District Judge Casey McClain and released on $5,000 unsecured bail
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 8.
