photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Hilltop Child Development Center, 1652 Ousdahl Road, is pictured Monday, April 7, 2025.

Updated at 4:20 p.m. Monday, April 7

During a field trip last week a child in the care of a Lawrence day care center was left locked in a van for “an extended period of time.”

Hilltop Child Development Center at the University of Kansas called the incident “regrettable” in a message to parents Friday that was obtained by the Journal-World.

“Unintentionally, a child was left unattended in a locked van for an extended period of time while the class participated in the field trip,” the letter said; the child was later found by a teacher “upset but unharmed.”

The letter did not indicate the child’s age, how long the child had been left alone in the vehicle or where the incident took place, but it indicated that Hilltop had notified the child’s family immediately as well as KU’s administration; the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, which oversees licensing for day cares; and the National Association for the Education of Young Children, which oversees accreditation.

Hilltop’s interim executive director, Claire Ehney, expressed in the letter that the center “did not provide the highest level of care,” but she did not give any further details regarding how a child was left behind in the vehicle while others participated in the field trip.

“These are not the actions of the Hilltop we should be or want to be,” she wrote, noting that the specifics of the incident would be reviewed and that “appropriate corrective acton will be taken.” She said that in the meantime all field trips at Hilltop would be suspended.

According to the National Weather Service in Topeka, Friday’s high temperature in Lawrence was 49; the low was 45.

The Journal-World has reached out to Ehney and KU for further details, as well as to KDHE regarding what kind of investigation might be taking place. Only a spokeswoman for KU responded, sending the exact same message from Ehney referenced above, with no additional information. Questions about how many staff members and children were on the field trip and the center’s method for accounting for children during an outing went unanswered.

The Journal-World has also reached out to the City of Lawrence and the Lawrence Police Department regarding the legality of the situation. A police spokeswoman said, “This is not our case.”

The location of the field trip was not disclosed in Hilltop’s message, and neither the center nor KU answered questions about it. Some city codes, such as Olathe’s, specifically make it a public offense for children under age 10 to be left unattended in a vehicle. Lawrence does not appear to have such an ordinance, but state law generally prohibits endangering or neglecting children, and KDHE regulations say drivers should ensure no child remains when a vehicle is vacated.

Hilltop, a nonprofit whose main campus is at 1652 Ousdahl Road, is considered a “controlled affiliate” of KU. It’s connected to the university through Student Affairs and a negotiated management agreement, but its employees are not state employees, according to Hilltop’s website. Hilltop’s employees report to the executive director, who reports to the nonprofit’s board of directors.

The van incident is the second incident within a month that parents of Hilltop children were notified about. On March 10, Ehney and board president Casey Fraites-Chapes sent a message regarding “substantiated” and “disturbing” behaviors of a teacher at the Hilltop West location, 2509 Town Center Drive.

The letter does not disclose the teacher’s actions but says the person is no longer employed there and that they were investigated by KDHE and the Kansas Department for Children and Families.

“The actions were found to have violated several of KDHE’s licensing requirements,” the letter said, in addition to calling them “disturbing.” While offering no specifics, the message indicated that Hilltop had met with the affected families.

Ehney and Fraites-Chapes said that a March 14 training session would reiterate to staff “expectations and our responsibility to promptly report situations where abusive behaviors toward a child is known or suspected.”

“We will closely examine how we train, supervise, and evaluate our teaching staff to ensure we are meeting the highest expectations and deliver quality care always for your children,” the message said.

Two years ago, as the Journal-World reported, a man who had worked as a dishwasher at Hilltop for 15 years, Bruce Stanley Springsteen, was sentenced to seven years in prison for child pornography. At the time of that conviction he was on probation for three felony counts of attempted sexual exploitation of a child, rendering him a “persistent sexual offender” under state law. KU spokeswoman Erinn Barcomb-Peterson told the Journal-World that Springsteen “had no unsupervised access to children” when he worked at Hilltop.