WOODBINE, Md. — The website for Glenwood Country Day School in Woodbine says it's "temporarily closed due to construction on our campus."
In reality, the private preschool and daycare was issued an emergency suspension last year after the owners failed to notify a state agency that one of its employees was under criminal investigation.
According to the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE), the owner voluntarily surrendered the license to operate the school on March 6 of this year. But the school was still under suspension by the state at the time, MSDE confirms.
Now, the "Glenwood Country Day School" signs have been replaced with signs for "Little Leaves Preschool."
"It wasn't until a few weeks ago I think that we saw the signs up. We all cheered when the signs came down for Glenwood Country Day School," a mother who's child used to attend the school told WMAR-2 News.
She, and other parents who all asked to remain anonymous due to potential retaliation concerns, reached out to WMAR-2 News once they noticed the school was attempting to reopen under a new name.
MSDE's Office of Child Care (OCC) confirms the owner, Cheryl Stradlin, submitted an application for a new license to operate Little Leaves Preschool at the same location.
A spokesperson for MSDE says it does not prohibit anyone from submitting an application, but "will review and evaluate all past compliance history as part of the approval process." The spokesperson goes on to say "the agency has not received a completed application in order to make a determination regarding the approval of a license at this time."
In Maryland, it's against the law to advertise child care services without a license.
Webpages for both schools are active, displaying the same address, phone number, as well as the same photos of children, along with identical captions.
Glenwood Country Day School is advertising private tours for next school year starting April 1st.
Last week, we got in touch with Stradling, who told us her website manager had a health emergency and hadn't gotten a chance to take the Glenwood page down. She claims she was unaware that the Little Leaves webpage was live already. She told us both webpages would be taken down right away. It's been a week, and they're still up.
Stradling said she hopes to open Little Leaves Preschool in September if the state hopes the license. A voicemail for Little Leaves says school starts in September.
"They're - in my opinion - trying to muddy the waters, confuse parents who don't know what is happening, hide the reviews, the negative reviews, and people are gonna fall for it - people who don't know what happened in this community. It hit this community hard," an anonymous mother told WMAR-2 News.
In January of last year, parents were informed suddenly that the state had issued an emergency suspension for Glenwood Country Day School. It wasn't until a week later that they found out why: a staff member, Dameon Patterson, had been arrested for sexually abusing a nine year old girl there.
Weeks later, he was arrested on similar charges for accusations from 2021 in Baltimore County that were never formally pursued. He's since been found guilty in Howard County. His trial in Baltimore County is in July.
Glenwood Country Day School's owners were required by Maryland law to immediately notify the State Department of Education's Office of Child Care when they learned of the allegations, which they did not. Parents also say they were left in the dark.
"There were signs that something was not right," the same mom told WMAR-2 News. Another mother said she too, "had a weird feeling" about the school, but "didn't listen to my gut." She now struggles with doubting herself as a parent, but feels strongly that the rebranded school should not be permitted to reopen.
"The fact that, you know, she had been saying from the get-go, we'll come back from this, it'll be OK. Like there was no remorse. There was no insight. There was no like reevaluation, you know what I mean? There was no like come to Jesus moment in this that I could see from the outside," she told WMAR-2 News in a phone interview.
"I guess it's my hope that this message gets out so that this never happens to another family again, another child," the first mother said. "And that pressure is applied to the OCC so that they can't just brush this under the rug, which I'm not saying they are doing but it's our job to make sure that that this is not forgotten."
The parents also pointed out that there's another provider in Maryland with a similar name, potentially adding further confusion for families searching for child care.
A spokesperson for Little Leaves Behavioral Sciences tells WMAR-2 News: "We want to reiterate that Little Leaves Behavioral Services (www.littleleaves.org [littleleaves.org]) is in no way affiliated with the preschool you referenced or the website operating under a similar name. Little Leaves Behavioral Services is a center-based Applied Behavior Analysis therapy program for young children with autism. Our centers have operated under this name for over a decade and are committed to providing high-quality clinical services to families across Maryland, Virginia and Florida."