dpPittsboro police officers on Tuesday said they are investigating allegations of a daycare employee assaulting a child.
According to Pittsboro Police Chief Clarence Johnson, the department is looking into a physical assault on a child at Amazing Explorers Academy. Johnson said the investigation is focused on one employee, identified in court documents as Violetta Wolovich, and not the daycare as a whole.
WRAL stopped by the daycare on Wednesday for comment on the investigation. Joanna Anderson, who works at the corporate offices of Amazing Explorers, declined to comment on the investigation.
“We’re not making a comment,” Anderson said. “We have our lawyer handling it.”
WRAL asked Anderson if they had dismissed any employees after parents shared screenshots of a statement with us.
“We notified families as we did, and there’s nothing else to comment on that,” Anderson said.
WRAL also asked if they had any message to parents/families who are enrolled in their program.
“We’ve been speaking with the families at this time. The ones that need to be informed,” Anderson said.
One parent, who wanted to remain anonymous, said they were surprised by the accusations against Wolovich.
“She was on our pickup list as a babysitter. So you can imagine learning about it on WRAL late at night last night. We only had so many questions,” the parent said.
Wolovich is charged with seven misdemeanor counts of child abuse. Court documents accuse her of:
- Slamming a child’s head down on a sleeping mat to get the child to go to sleep.
- Aggressively slapping the child on her back to get her to fall asleep.
- Grabbing the child’s legs and causing her to fall face-first.
WRAL News reached out to the daycare for further comment on employee dismissals and Wolovich’s job status and did not get an immediate response.
