NASSAU COUNTY, Fla. — Action News Jax has now learned there are at least four open lawsuits against Kid City USA, a daycare company based in Daytona Beach with locations across the U.S. and northeast Florida.
We told you last week when we found out Kid City USA’s daycare in Fernandina Beach abruptly closed, which parents told us happened without warning.
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We searched Nassau County court records and found out landlord of that daycare sued Kid City USA and its CEO two months ago, claiming they had missed rent payments totaling more than $104,000.
Ciara Morris was a teacher at the Kid City USA teacher in Fernandina Beach. She tells Action News Jax that she and her fellow teachers only got one phone call from the company notifying them their location would be shutting down, a call Morris said happened one day before they had to close the doors on the daycare.
“This is how I provide for my two kids, and it was all taken from me,” Morris said, “I felt like a rug had been snatched out from under me.”
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Apart from the Nassau County lawsuit, we found open lawsuits in Duval, St. Johns and Clay Counties. All of the lawsuits claim that Kid City USA and its CEO missed rent payments to the landlords of some of the daycares managed by the company, adding to more than $500,000 worth of rent that wasn’t paid.
One of the lawsuits came from the landlord of one of Kid City USA’s daycares in Clay County, on Royal Pines Road, which closed last month. The lawsuit claims the company and its CEO missed more than $226,000 in rent payments.
Beth Dreher said she was the director for the Kid City daycare in Fruit Cove for about seven months before she quit, in part, because she claims Kid City USA management wasn’t giving her the resources she needed to effectively take care of the kids.
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“I didn’t feel like I had any support from the company,” said Dreher, “I was severely understaffed, I was working 6:00 in the morning to 6:00 at night.”
In the last two weeks, we’ve told you about the daycare closures of the Kid City USA locations in Fernandina Beach and Aberdeen, a neighborhood in St. Johns County. We called the location in St. Augustine, which had sent a letter to families last week notifying them the daycare would close this upcoming Friday, October 31st, to ask about its possible closure. We were told the daycare was working through issues with its landlord and hopes to stay open.
Action News Jax has contacted the lawyer representing the CEO of Kid City USA asking for a response to the lawsuits, recent daycare closures and questions asked by parents and former daycare employees. We’re still waiting for a follow-up, as well as a response to the multiple requests we have made for interviews with Kid City USA.
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