photo by: University of Kansas

An aerial photo shows Hilltop's main campus along Ousdahl Road in Lawrence.

Story updated at 8:35 p.m. Wednesday, July 30:

Staffing is in flux at Lawrence’s Hilltop Child Development Center in the wake of findings of child abuse and ongoing state investigations at the KU-operated center.

Investigators with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment have found that a teacher at Hilltop’s main campus location “would humiliate children by spraying them with a squirt bottle to have them stop talking,” according to records on KDHE’s child care licensing website.

That incident recently was the subject of a staff meeting at Hilltop, where a supervisor berated staff members, saying that Hilltop was “no longer the organization it was.”

“Every person in this room will need to recognize why that is not OK,” Executive Director Cori Berg said, according to an audio recording of the meeting obtained by the Journal-World. “Children are not pets.”

KDHE investigators also found that a staff member at Hilltop’s relatively new location on KU’s West Campus engaged in corporal punishment of a child by forcefully grabbing children in some instances, and in others pulling chairs out from beneath them so that the students fell to the floor, according to records on KDHE’s child care licensing website.

In another instance, a staff member at the West facility was found to have engaged in verbal abuse by yelling at students, including saying things like: “You are going to sit there while we all watch you cry,” according to the KDHE report.

It is not clear from the report whether these two incidents at the West facility both involved the same staff member.

Parents of children who attend Hilltop received a letter Wednesday from KU and Hilltop leaders notifying them that state officials had substantiated reports of child abuse at Hilltop. The letter said Hilltop notified parents this winter that complaints of abuse had been made to the state, and that Hilltop officials could now report that the allegations were found to be true. The letter contained no details of the abuse, but the publicly available KDHE reports provided descriptions of the incidents. The letter also cited only the West facility, despite KDHE also substantiating abuse allegations at Hilltop’s main campus location, 1652 Ousdahl Road.

“Those allegations were substantiated, and the teacher is no longer employed with Hilltop,” the undated letter from Casey Fraites-Chapes, president of the Hilltop Board of Directors and Jennifer Wamelink, associate vice provost for student affairs at KU, said. “These events are deeply concerning and painful for our community.

“We recognize the trust you place in us and want to be clear: child safety and care is not negotiable. We continue to take this situation with the utmost seriousness.”

The letter went on to say that a program director has suddenly left the employment of the Hilltop West facility, which is Hilltop’s newest center that is part of KU’s efforts to turn its West Campus into a live, work and play commercial and residential development.

“We know sudden transitions like this are challenging,” the letter states. “We remain focused on building a staff team that is unified in our mission and fully committed to creating a safe, nurturing and academically rich experience for every child.”

More issues may be on the horizon, however, for the center, which serves a range of children from infants to grade school-aged students. According to a review of the public documents on the KDHE site, there are at least nine investigations by KDHE that currently are ongoing between Hilltop’s two facilities. Three investigations remain open at the Hilltop West facility, while six remain open at Hilltop’s main campus center.

There had been previous signs of operational problems at Hilltop. The Journal-World reported in April that a 5-year old child was inadvertently left unsupervised in a Hilltop van that had transported students to a field trip. The child was left in the van for an “extended period of time” and ultimately was found by a teacher “upset but unharmed.”

That incident is among several that KDHE investigated and ultimately determined were violations of the state’s child care licensing regulations. According to the KDHE documents, Hilltop has had at least seven substantiated violations in 2025. They include:

• June 18: The incident at the Main Campus involving students being sprayed by water bottles as punishment for talking.

• June 19: Two classrooms at the Main Campus were deemed improperly lighted to a degree that it impacted staff’s ability to monitor students.

• April 22: An incident report at the Main Campus was not filed in a timely manner after a student was found to have suffered a concussion after hitting their head on the school’s playground.

• April 17: A teacher at the West Campus did not maintain supervision of the classroom. The teacher was found to be on her personal phone.

• Feb. 5: In violation of state regulations, Hilltop did not submit identifying information needed for background checks for seven employees of the West Campus.

• Feb. 5: A staff member at the West Campus gave a child a caramel candy, despite the child having food restrictions due to seizure risks.

• Feb. 5: Staff members at the West Campus did not report suspected abuse to state officials within the required 24 hours.

In the staff meeting that the Journal-World obtained audio of, Berg — who was announced as the new executive director of Hilltop in June — said there was reason to believe that Hilltop had a history of not adequately reporting suspicions of abuse.

“Hilltop has a culture of secrecy with these things, and it stops now,” Berg said. “As long as there is secrecy, children will be mistreated in our midst, and it stops. Your job, your employment is not worth protecting your buddies.

“When it comes to licensed child care or any work with children, the phrase is — and I want you to write this on your paper — ‘Children first.’ Write it down.”

Berg — who has a 27-year career in early childhood education and most recently was an executive director of a Dallas school, according to a KU press release — said during the July staff meeting that she was shocked by “some of the response by staff members and the level of complacency.”

According to a source with connections to the school, several staff members have felt mistreated by the new administration, and resignations are on the rise. The source, who requested anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the matter, said at least three employees have walked out in the last three days, and that there were staff discussions of a major walkout to come. The Journal-World was unable to confirm the number of resignations in recent days.

Attempts to reach Berg on Wednesday evening were unsuccessful. In the July staff meeting, though, Berg said the incidents at Hilltop have attracted attention and concern from top administrators on the KU campus. While Hilltop has its own board of directors, it is a controlled affiliate of KU, which means the university has legal responsibilities for Hilltop.

A spokeswoman for KU on Wednesday evening said the university was taking the issues very seriously, and referred to the letter sent to parents. Spokeswoman Erinn Barcomb-Peterson also confirmed that multiple personnel changes have occurred at Hilltop in recent months. Barcomb-Peterson also said that despite the challenges at Hilltop, KU remained committed to the center and was not considering closing the enterprise.

The letter to parents also expressed support for Hilltop’s future. The letter said the organization was seeking to hire for vacant positions, revamp policies, and “dig deep with a thorough review to understand the systemic and cultural barriers present at Hilltop that may have contributed to these incidents.”

“Changes in policies, practices and training are underway to ensure Hilltop is the community we all expect and need it to be,” Fraites-Chapes and Wamelink wrote in the letter. “Indeed, Hilltop must be a place where concerns are taken seriously and where all of us report child abuse promptly, even when it is difficult for us personally.”