Embattled North Side Day-Care Center Will Close

A North Side day-care center that made headlines last year when children accused staff members of sexual abuse will close this summer for financial reasons, Jewish Community Center officials said Friday.

The announcement came three days after national child sex-abuse experts met at the request of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and reviewed the allegations of abuse at the Rogers Park Day Care Center, 7101 N. Greenview Ave. The experts recommended that the center be closed pending further investigation, according to Gordon Johnson, DCFS director.

On Friday, Jerry Witkovsky, Jewish Community Center general director, said the experts' recommendation did not influence his decision to shut the center. "Up until today, I was unaware that these people had re-examined the case," he said.

Witkovsky said the center will close because the "changing demographics of the East Rogers Park community have decreased the demand for day care of Jewish children. "He said the center's dwindling enrollment has not been adversely affected by publicity surrounding the investigation. The facility will continue to operate as a senior citizen center, he said.

The center's teaching staff, some of whom are under investigation, will be transferred to Jewish Community Center facilities throughout Chicago and the suburbs, Witkovsky said. Children enrolled at the center will be given the option to attend other area community centers, including the Bernard Horwich Center, 3003 W. Touhy Ave.

The Rogers Park Day Care Center case was the first recorded in Illinois to involve accusations of sexual abuse by a group of adults. It consisted of 246 allegations that teachers and other staff members abused children there.

Last April the center's janitor was charged with criminal sexual abuse. His case is pending.
None of the remaining allegations have resulted in arrests.

State officials and Chicago police acknowledged that they made errors while investigating the case. Some experts say those mistakes--including a failure to thoroughly interview the children and a delay in responding to some children`s allegations of widespread abuse--made it unlikely that the year-old inquiry would determine the scope of the alleged abuse or if it occurred at all.

In an effort to improve the state`s investigatory procedures in large-scale abuse investigations, Johnson invited noted child-abuse experts to meet here earlier this week to discuss child sexual abuse and review the Rogers Park case.

The experts concluded that the allegations of widespread abuse appeared to have some foundation, Johnson said. The experts included Dr. Eli H. Newberger of Children's Hospital in Boston; Ann Wolbert Burgess, a psychiatric nurse at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Nursing; Jon Conte of the University of Chicago; and Dr. Howard Levy of Mt. Sinai Hospital.

Parents of children enrolled at the center had mixed reactions to news of the center's closing.

"I think it's a real shame," said Daniel Zifkin, father of a 5-year-old girl who has attended the center for three years. "It's a good program. I don't believe the charges about the teachers. . . . I think it's a tremendous loss for the community."

Beth Vargo, whose 6-year-old daughter allegedly was abused at the center, said, "The allegations against the teachers who were there when my child was there are very serious. Transferring those teachers to other facilities is no solution to this nightmare." Read more here .

Two teachers implicated in sex abuse at center

TWO MORE STAFF members have been implicated in the sexual abuse of children at a Rogers Park day-care center where a janitor was charged last week with taking indecent liberties with two children, sources close to the investigation said Saturday.

Authorities were not releasing the identities of the two staff members at the Rogers Park Jewish Community Center, 7101 N. Greenview Ave., but said the two are teachers and were named by children in interviews Saturday. Sources said that additional to the children's accusations, there is supporting medical evidence in at least one case. Each teacher was named by at least two children, the sources said.

One of the employees named by the children Saturday was one of two teachers suspended Thursday for failing to report children's complaints of sexual abuse, sources said, though at the time officials said neither was suspected of involvement in the molestation.

THE INTERVIEWS Saturday were done with 18 children who were considered "high risk" victims, said Allen Friedmann, who is conducting the interviews along with authorities Friedmann, a former investigator for the Illinois Department of children and Family Services, works for a not-for-profit agency, Human Effective Living Programs, Inc., and is a specialist in interviewing child abuse victims. He was called in last week by Chicago police to conduct the interviews.

Last week the janitor, Decortic Parks, 45, 7930 S. Peoria St., was arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a 4-year-old girl and a 3-year-old boy. Neither of the two teachers named by the children has been charged.

After preliminary interviews, the children were found to have a high likelihood of having been sexually abused based on their responses and physical exams, he said. Many of the Children have mentioned Parks during the interviews, Freidmann said.

AT LEAST three children told investigators they reported the incidents to two teachers. Those two teachers, whose identities have not be revealed, were suspended Thursday because of their alleged failure to report the incidents, Keenan said.

The two teachers, according to sources, deny that the children said they were attacked in the first-floor washroom outside classrooms, Friedmann said. Children older than 2 were allowed to go unattended to that washroom, according to sources.

CHILDREN ALSO reported that they were attacked in a boiler room in the basement of the building and in a stairwell leading from the first floor to the second floor.

According to Friedmann and a staff member who requested anonymity, Parks was the only one who had a key to that stairwell. Interviewers have been asking children where that stairwell leads, Freidmand said. Read more here.

Two Day Care Teachers Suspended

Two Teachers at a Rogers Park day care center were suspended because they allegedly knew of incidents of child molesting at the center but failed to report them to authorities, a spokesman also said that 32 children enrolled in the facility, the Rogers Park Jewish Community Center, 711 N. Greenview Ave., showed possible symptoms of sexual abuse as determined by a questionnaire filled out by parents.

The developments came a day after it was disclosed that a 19-year veteran janitor at the center, Decortic Parks, 45, of 7930 S. Peoria St., had been charged with taking indecent liberties with a 3-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl, police said.

Parks has denied wrongdoing, said Mark Rakoczy, a Cook County assistant state's attorney. The case against Parks at this time is based solely on the accusations of the two children, Rakoczy said.

The two teachers were suspended earlier this week, said Donald Schlosser, the spokesman of the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). Schlosser would not identify them, but said neither is suspected of having molested any of the children at the center. Parks also has been suspended.

Parks was arrested Monday after the mother of the 4-year-old called the mother of the 3-year-old and both found their children telling similar stories about being abused, Rakoczy said.
The center, which has 67 students ranging in age from toddlers to 5-year-olds, will be open as usual Friday, said Jay Levenberg, assistant director of the Jewish Centers of Chicago, an affiliate of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago.

But many parents who brought their children to the facility Thursday said their decision was difficult after parents of the allegedly abused children described in a meeting Wednesday night what they said had happened to their children.

At that meeting with DCFS officials, police and center's staff, parents were given a questionnaire intended to aid investigators in determining if additional children had been molested, Schlosser said.

Schlosser said the questions asked among other things, whether the child experienced redness around the genital area, had urinary infections or nightmares or if the child was afraid to be alone with strangers.

Based on the parents' answers, he said 32 children exhibited at least one symptom of possible molestation. Read more here.