Woman charged with abusing boy at day care facility

A 49-year-old Saukville woman has been charged in Ozaukee County Circuit Court with abusing a 2-year-old child she cared for at a Town of Grafton day care center in June.

Tracie L. Remmert, who faces one felony count of child abuse by a day care provider, is scheduled to make her first court appearance this week.

According to the criminal complaint, a couple told authorities that when they picked their two sons up from New Frontiers Preschool, they were given the linens for their 2-year-old because they had blood on them.  They were told the boy had a nose bleed because he was picking his nose.

But later, New Frontiers informed the couple that the blood was not due to a nose bleed, which prompted an investigation. Two employees of the day care center told authorities that Remmert became upset because the boy was being fussy on his cot during naptime. She then picked up the cot with the boy on it, walked away from the other children and dropped the boy and the cot from chest or standing height. Remmert then walked away without checking on the boy, the complaint states.

Other employees, however, did check on the boy and saw he was bleeding from his mouth and had a cut on the inside of his lip.

The two employees who witnessed the incident told authorities they did not immediately report the boy’s injury because they were new. 

Remmert told one employee that the child was injured when he fell off a tricycle, but then instructed the same person to tell the boy’s parents the blood on his blanket was due to the child picking his nose, according to the complaint.

When a New Frontiers manager confronted Remmert about the incident, she abruptly resigned. 

During an interview with an investigator, Remmert said she did pick up the cot with the boy on it to move him away from other children but said the cot was only 6 to 8 inches off the ground when she dropped it. She said she saw blood on the boy’s blanket but couldn’t see any injuries and didn’t think it was serious, the complaint states.

When asked why she resigned, Remmert said that after 30 years of working in child care, she was done, according to the complaint.