Virginia day care centers: Search for Child Day Care

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1-20 of 107

The Campagna Center

The Campagna center,inc. (The Center), is a community-based nonprofit organization in alexandria, va. The Center operates a variety of programs to address The needs of children, youth and families.

Revenue

$13.2m

Assets

$7.3m

Employees

242

EIN

54-0534609

IRS type

501(c)(3)

Infant Toddler Family Day Care of Northern Virginia (ITFDC)

Infant Toddler Family Day Care (ITFDC) has committed itself to raising the standards of professionalism for the early child care and education workforce. Well-educated , knowledgeable, and nurturing teachers are the key to positive outcomes for children.

Revenue

$2.3m

Assets

$1.2m

Employees

12

EIN

54-1228948

IRS type

501(c)(3)

Imagination Learning Center

The organizations mission is to provide child care services and gainful employment to their parents. Child care services and parents gainfully employed. Child care services were provided for the mutual benefit of children and gainful employment of coop me…

Revenue

$2.3m

Assets

$2.3m

Employees

58

EIN

54-1495814

IRS type

501(c)(3)

Crystal City Working Parents

The center is organized to provide affordable child care services for the benefit of members of the community to enable them to be gainfully employed.

Revenue

$2.4m

Assets

$942.3k

Employees

42

EIN

54-1315884

IRS type

501(c)(3)

Tysons Corner Children’s Center (TCCC)

Tysons Corner Children’s Center is committed to providing exceptional, high quality childcare for our families. We know that young children thrive in a learning environment where dedicated professionals ensure that they feel safe, nurtured and loved.

Revenue

$2.7m

Assets

$919.8k

Employees

60

EIN

54-1391281

IRS type

501(c)(3)

The Children’s School

Provide quality child care services for children from infancy to age five. The Children’s School admits students of any race, color, nationality or origin. Child care services for arlington county and surrounding areas.

Revenue

$2.8m

Assets

$1.4m

Employees

36

EIN

54-1414480

IRS type

501(c)(3)

Higher Horizons Head Start

Higher Horizons Head Start, a private, non-profit organization established in 1963, provides quality early childhood development and family services for low-income families to help children and families grow in meaningful ways.

Revenue

$4.8m

Assets

$560.0k

Employees

109

EIN

54-0736355

IRS type

501(c)(3)

Children’s Center

To nurture and educate children and their families through a professional staff dedicated to enhancing each child’s potential with creative quality programs.

Revenue

$10.9m

Assets

$3.4m

Employees

270

EIN

52-1317062

IRS type

501(c)(3)

Child Development Resources

Cdr is a private, non-profit agency that provides services for young children and their families in the community, and training for early childhood professionals throughout the nation.

Revenue

$10.5m

Assets

$7.1m

Employees

115

EIN

54-0791991

IRS type

501(c)(3)

Common Ground Childcare

Child Care services. Child Care services to the community for children ages 16 weeks to 12 years. Provide Child Care services to the community for children ages 16 weeks to 12 years.

Revenue

$1.7m

Assets

$174.2k

Employees

43

EIN

54-0913856

IRS type

501(c)(3)

National Early Childhood Program Accreditation Commission (NECPA)

We pledge to remain focused on the interests of children by promoting benchmarks for high quality standards throughout the early care and education profession.

Revenue

$975.0k

Assets

$606.2k

Employees

13

EIN

58-2037409

IRS type

501(c)(3)

Friends Association For Children

To help Children and their families in the richmond area achieve their potential and become productive citizens. To help Children and families achieve their potential and become producitive citizens. To help Children and families achieve their potential…

Revenue

$2.1m

Assets

$3.1m

Employees

63

EIN

54-0505899

IRS type

501(c)(3)

Heritage Child Development Center

Empowering & equipping the promise of tomorrow’s generation today through: *education *enrichment *experience *energized community collaboration so that the children in our communities have a strong foundation for the future.

Revenue

$1.3m

Assets

$1.1m

Employees

72

EIN

54-1825504

IRS type

501(c)(3)

Herndon Children’s Center (HCC)

Herndon Children’s Center (HCC) is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing families that live and work in the surrounding community with quality childcare and educational enrichment.

Revenue

$1.0m

Assets

$66.2k

Employees

31

EIN

54-1538074

IRS type

501(c)(3)

Main Street Child Development Center

To provide a quality accredited early childhood learning program for children of limited income working families, ages two through six, to grow and thrive in a nurturing environment.

Revenue

$1.6m

Assets

$2.2m

Employees

32

EIN

54-1502179

IRS type

501(c)(3)

The Child Care and Learning Center

The establishment and operation of a daycare facility for The use, benefit, and general welfare of The children of rappahannock county, Virginia. The establishment and operation of a daycare facility for the use, benefit,and general welfare of the child…

Revenue

$1.5m

Assets

$2.0m

Employees

28

EIN

54-1061820

IRS type

501(c)(3)

Robert E Simon JR Children’s Center

Robert E Simon JR Children’s Center is a child daycare center in Reston, VA whose mission is: To provide Children’s daycare.

Revenue

$1.1m

Assets

$389.3k

Employees

29

EIN

54-1477461

IRS type

501(c)(3)

Apple Tree Learning Center

To provide a high quality Christian. To provide a high quality Christian education and daycare services for children ages 6 weeks to 12 years. To meet the communities’ needs for early childhood education facilities by offering faith-based developmental an…

Revenue

$4.4m

Assets

$2.1m

Employees

0

EIN

80-0627314

IRS type

501(c)(3)

Frog Pond Early Learning Ctr

The organization is dedicated to serving working families with young children and children with special needs through quality child care services. To provide a day care service to working families with young children and children with special needs. To …

Revenue

$1.0m

Assets

$647.4k

Employees

33

EIN

54-1837557

IRS type

501(c)(3)

Clarendon Child Care Center

Provide childcare services for pre-school children. To provide educational and childcare services to preschool age children. To provide educational and childcare servcies to preschool age children.

Revenue

$759.5k

Assets

$576.7k

Employees

15

EIN

54-1088503

IRS type

501(c)(3)

Virginia Child Care Centers

With 4,094 preschools and child development centers operating in the state of Virginia, the right daycare option is waiting for you.
Whether you prefer a larger preschool with an innovative early childhood curriculum or the cozy personalization of smaller daycare centers, there are Virginia childcare centers to fit every preference and budget.
Check out the Quick Search box on the right hand side of the page in order to search for childcare providers by zip code or city/state. You can also click on your Virginia county and follow the links.
You will be able to access information about scores of different childcare providers in your area, complete with reviews, business hours, a street view map, the age ranges the childcare providers service, the size of the service, and where the provider is located.

Childcare Center Search

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If you’re looking for a family day care provider in Virginia, click on Virginia Home Daycare.

Virginia Child Care Centers by Virginia County:

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Merit School of Quantico Corporate Center

Stafford, VA 22554 | (703) 291-5224

Interested in finding a summer camp for your little one this year? Merit School of Quantico Corporate Center not only offers year-round daycare services, but we also have summer camps available for toddlers and preschoolers! Check out our website for enrollment information or to learn more about our school.

Kids in Action: Community Adventures

Fairfax, VA 22031 | (208) 569-0365

“Kids in Action: Community Adventures” is a Northern Virginia summer camp that promotes healthy habits, environmental awareness, and community building for children. The program involves exercise and nutrition activities that feature local businesses and healthy food establishments. Children learn about environmental health by visiting local parks and nature preserves, and participating in gardening activities, all while promoting community stewardship and taking care of community spaces.
The camp also teaches children about the community’s history and culture by meeting local leaders and participating in service projects that give back to the community. The experienced counselors aim to build confidence and a sense of belonging among the children while supporting local businesses. “Kids in Action: Community Adventures” is a fun and enriching summer camp program that encourages children to explore their surroundings, make new friends and have a positive impact on their community.

Pinnacle Pointe Daycare Academy – U…

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Pinnacle Pointe Daycare Academy – Union City GA Child Care Learning Center

The Learning Experience-Chantilly

Chantilly, VA 20151 | (703) 378-7391

The Learning Experience Chantilly is located across from BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir on 4150 Pleasant Valley Rd. From preschool through kindergarten, we make early education and daycare joyful, engaging, and fun so children are happy to learn, play and grow. For nearly 40 years, The Learning Experience® has been positively impacting the lives of children ages 6 weeks to six years by developing and implementing ground-breaking childcare and early education programs. Our L.E.A.P.® (Learning Experience Academic Program) Curriculum uses fun, hands-on activities throughout early education to help children develop intellectually, socially, and cognitively. All-inclusive enrichment programs include yoga, music, fitness, soccer, and more.

Celebree School of Alexandria

Alexandria, VA 22314 | (703) 349-3998

Protect | Educate | Nurture – Our professional and dedicated team nurtures and educates infants, preschool and school-age children in a wide-range of child care programs. Our children develop positive social skills and values and learn about their world through age-appropriate play, projects and activities. We provide a stable, secure learning environment that fosters a solid foundation for lifelong success.

Emmanuel Kids Korner

Sterling, VA 20166 | (571) 488-4388

Emmanuel Kids Korner is a faith-based Early Learning Center in Sterling, VA. The Center serves ages 6 weeks to 5 years olds. 

Virginia Child Care Licensing Agency

Virginia Department of Social Services
Division of Licensing Programs
801 E. Main Street
Richmond, VA 23219-2901
Phone: 804-726-7165
Toll Free: 800-543-7545
Web Site: Virginia Child Care Licensing

Childcare Center Resources:

Apply for Childcare Assistance Programs

One of the biggest challenges parents face is finding affordable child care. It is usually incredibly expensive, often forcing parents to make some very difficult choices. Even for those who can affor. ..

Florida Childcare Licensing and Regulation

Florida child care facility licensing requirements can be confusing, but the Florida Department of Children and Families has provided a wealth of information to both providers and parents.

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The McMartin case is the most costly and scandalous trial in US history

• Lifestyle

Procedural costs alone cost the Treasury $15 million. The price of the decade-long mass hysteria generated by this scandalous hearing can only be guessed at.

January 5, 20227

Virginia McMartin Kindergarten had the best reputation in South Bay County. It was so difficult to get into it that parents stood in line for a place even before the birth of a child. Over the thirty years of the institution’s existence, its founder Virginia McMartin and her daughter Peggy Bucky have received a lot of commendations and awards from local authorities. They knew the most influential people in the community, because all the children from wealthy families went to McMartin kindergarten.

But one fine day (and all days are beautiful in California) there was a small incident. Local resident Judy Johnson came to the kindergarten without any warning with her two-year-old son Matthew. She didn’t want to hear about any waiting list. “Where will you order me to put the child?” she was indignant and won the argument with the teachers, simply leaving her son on the playground and declaring that she would come for him in the evening.

Mrs. Johnson’s behavior left an unpleasant aftertaste, but in the end it was still decided to make an exception and accept Matthew into the nursery group. The kindergarten workers will regret this concession until the end of their days.

Suspicion

Judy Johnson had enough problems: she lived separately from her husband and barely made ends meet. And then Matthew took to the fashion to be capricious when they sat him on the potty, and complain that he was in pain. On August 11, 1983, Judy picked up her son from kindergarten, examined his butt and decided that it was suspiciously red. Of all the possible explanations, Judy chose the most monstrous: her son was abused. It didn’t take long to find the culprit: there was only one male teacher in McMartin.

Ray Bucky was 25 years old, but he still couldn’t find himself. After dropping out of three colleges, he returned to his home and began working in a kindergarten owned by his grandmother and mother. The job seemed easy, Ray loved the kids, and the kids loved him. Many mothers who raised a child without a father even liked that in kindergarten their children received at least some male influence. And for the most anxious parents, the outlandishness of the “mustached nanny” was smoothed out by the fact that Ray still worked in the family business.

To all Judy’s questions about whether his uncle-teacher did anything to him, Matthew answered in the negative. The mother was not relieved. Continuing to wind herself up and extort at least something from the child, she somehow became convinced that Ray tied up Matthew, undressed and photographed. With this information, Judy went to the police. Matthew himself, at the age of two, could not tell the police anything, but his mother did it for him, adding that not only her son, but also other children suffered at the hands of Ray.

The police sent Judy to the Children’s International Institute (ICI) at the University of California. There, Matthew’s reddened ass was examined by an intern who had neither knowledge of such injuries nor work experience. Nevertheless, she supported the worried mother’s version, concluding that such redness could indeed indicate violence. And hell broke loose for McMartin employees.

Prosecution

The police started calling the parents asking the children if the caregiver touched them where they shouldn’t. Although not a single child could remember anything reprehensible, the police came to search the McMartins. The search yielded no results.

Ray was arrested but released on bail the same day. The police did not disclose who reported on him, and during the first days of the investigation, Ray believed that all the fuss broke out because of the girl who once grabbed his groin, and he pulled her hand away (later it turned out that the girl’s father allowed her to indulge like that at home). It was the only explanation that came to his mind. No one at McMartin knew that Matthew was the “victim”. Surprisingly, for the next three weeks, his mother, as if nothing had happened, took her son to the lair of what she considered a gang of rapists.

Judy continued to goad the police, social workers, and parents against Ray. Moreover, now the charges were added that the educator in front of her son beheaded the child. No matter how absurd her statements seemed, they could not be ignored. There is no smoke without fire, and it was about crimes against children.

Day after day, the police questioned Ray’s neighbors. Nobody could say anything bad about him. What if you think about it? Well, if you think about it… Sometimes he stared at the girls in a strange way, and sometimes, on the contrary, he stared too aloofly into the void. Disturbing behavior… Someone remembered seeing Ray once in shorts but no underwear. The pervert sat in such a way that, if desired, one could see his entire anatomy in the trouser leg. And if he is still sitting in the kindergarten, huh?!

On September 7, the police raided the garden, arrested Ray a second time, and released him again due to lack of evidence. The case was stalling, a breakthrough was needed, and the police sent a letter to two hundred families asking for help in the investigation. The letter detailed everything that Ray could have been involved in: “…oral sex, caresses of the genitals, buttocks or breasts, sodomy (perhaps under the guise of taking a temperature). In addition, photographs of naked children may have been taken. Any information from your children regarding Ray Bucky taking the baby out during nap time, or Ray Bucky tying up the baby is important.”

Panic gripped South Bay. After the letter, the question of whether Ray was guilty was not even raised. Educators began to receive threatening calls. They tried to burn down the McMartin building. The fire was extinguished, but on the walls of the deserted kindergarten there were inscriptions: “This is only the beginning” and “Ray must die.” At meetings in churches, pastors spoke of satanic cults that sacrificed babies.

The children continued to persist, denying any depraved actions on Ray’s part. The answer “no” did not satisfy either the worried parents or the police, who were urged on by the district attorney Robert Filibosyan. Preoccupied with re-election, he saw in the case a chance to get ahead in the election race.

Key MacFarlane; Wayne Sats

Parents were urged to contact the International Children’s Institute. Key MacFarlane, a good friend of Filibosyan’s deputy, was the head of the sexual assault diagnostic unit at MDI.

By the spring of 1984, McFarlane and two of her assistants had interviewed almost four hundred children who visited McMartin. The examination said: almost all of them – three hundred and sixty – were victims of violence.

Readings

McFarlane, like some psychologists of the late 70s, was of the opinion that the absence of clear evidence cannot indicate that there was no violence. What matters is not what the child says, but how he behaves.

Dreaming of writing a book about victims of sexual abuse, and for the first time with so much data to work with, McFarlane used a method of talking to children, which used glove puppets and “anatomically correct” dolls – with genitals, pubic hair and other sexual characteristics. It was assumed that with the help of such figures, the child can show what he does not yet have enough words for.

In practice, however, it was not the dolls that helped MacFarlane get the desired responses from the children, but the chosen tactics. The necessary confessions were not simply pulled out of the child, but were often prompted to him. When one girl stubbornly refused to admit that Ray pulled up her dress, McFarlane showed how it was done on a doll. This didn’t work either. Then McFarlane said that she already knew about the girl’s “secrets” from other children, after which she depicted the process of oral sex on dolls, forcing the girl to say that it was “fu, fuck.” When asked who saw such a “fu-byaka” in the kindergarten, the girl named the sixty-year-old Peggy Bucky, the director of the kindergarten and Ray’s mother. McFarlane interpreted this murky testimony as clear evidence of molestation.

If a child resisted, McFarlane explained it as a psychological trauma from violence, which obviously happened, but the child is not yet ready to admit it. Believing that she was fighting on the side of good, McFarlane did not hesitate to lie to the children, as if their friends had already told everything. She made it clear that only smart children can remember well, but if you have nothing to tell, then you are probably stupid. But you’re not stupid, are you? And the children started talking. The folders of the criminal case grew by leaps and bounds.

Read also

After the meetings with MacFarlane, the children were sent to therapy, where they tried to extract repressed memories from them. There was still ten years left before the scientific debunking of the myth that a person can supposedly completely forget a traumatic episode, but actually restore it with the help of hypnosis and conversations. It is now known to psychologists that such procedures are, at best, ineffective, and at worst, lead to paramnesia, that is, the emergence of false memories. But in the mid-80s, such therapy was at the peak of popularity.

That the children’s stories were illogical, absurd, and completely out of line with the information the police had was irrelevant. One boy reported a “secret room” and hatches in the garden floor that led to tunnels. Another told how the tutors took him to the cemetery, dug up the coffin and sawed up the corpse.

The testimonies also mentioned a house with live lions, a horse killed with a baseball bat right in the group, and airplane travel. Several children told incomprehensible stories about Ray, although they went to kindergarten in those years when the main suspect in the case did not work there and lived in another city. The general opinion of adults was this: it was impossible to invent such a thing. At the parents’ pickets, the most popular posters were “We believe in children!”.

Almost no meeting was complete without the participation of Judy Johnson, who started all this mess. Her angry philippics were replenished each time with fresh accusations and new names of the criminals. Here are just some of her statements:

✔ Matthew’s ears and nipples were pierced with a stapler;
✔ Matthew was stripped and made to ride naked on a horse along the beach;
✔ Ray’s mother forced Matthew to perform oral sex on her;
✔ educators dressed up as witches, and during acts of violence, Ray wore costumes of a priest, a clown, Santa Claus and Satan;
✔ Matthew was placed in a coffin and buried;
✔ Ray killed and tortured animals in front of children;
✔ one day Matthew was put on a plane, brought to a pasture and forced to put his finger in a goat’s anus;
✔ Ray’s mother drilled Matthew under the armpits during the ritual;
✔ Matthew was forced to drink the blood of a freshly killed baby;
✔ children were rented out to perverts for comfort.

Judy was the mouthpiece for her parents. They listened to her, agreed with her, sympathized with her. No one suspected that she was unwell.

Parents of McMartin children waiting for the verdict

Hysteria

The hot topic was taken up with enthusiasm by TV and the press. The most prominent was Wayne Sats, a reporter for the Los Angeles chapter of ABC. The channel released one exclusive after another. No one could understand how Satsu could do it. Only later did it come out that he had a love affair with MacFarlane, who shared with him the fattest cream of the children’s testimony.

Meanwhile, the excited public moved from threats to actions. The workers of the ill-fated kindergarten began to be attacked. Peggy Bucky was stabbed on the street. Even those rare parents who expressed doubts about the accusations were intimidated with reprisals.

After the police announced that the investigation did not exclude the “trafficking” of children, seven more kindergartens were closed in the district, which were suspected of belonging to an underground network of pedophiles.

In April 1984, the entire kindergarten staff—Ray Bucky, his mother, sister, grandmother, and three teachers (two of them in their fifties)—were taken into custody. At first they were charged with 150 counts, but the district attorney brought that number up to 208. Only eighty-year-old Virginia McMartin was allowed bail. However, the accused did not have money for bail, all the savings went to lawyers. One of the longest preliminary hearings in the history of legal proceedings began, lasting 19months.

Ray Bucky and Peggy McMartin-Bucky

By the end of 1984, Judy Johnson was completely out of touch with the real world. She accused her long-departed husband of molesting her son, in addition, she told the police that someone had raped their dog, and now he was chasing her too. After that, she barricaded herself in the house. Coming out after a forced hospitalization with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, Judy went on an alcoholic spree and disappeared from the public eye. But the chain reaction she had launched was unstoppable. Mass hysteria entered a self-sustaining phase.

The defendants were not convicted, but everyone treated them like criminals. It seemed that the verdict was only a matter of time. The poll showed that 97.5% of South Bay residents believe McMartin’s staff were at fault.

Jury found the defendants not guilty

McFarlane stated that the heinous atrocities that took place in the kindergarten would not have been possible without the support of powerful people. Filibosyan’s assistant mentioned that he was talking about millions of pornographic images. The fact that neither the police nor the FBI were able to obtain a single piece of physical evidence was of little embarrassment to anyone. And so it was clear: the pedophile conspiracy of educators entangled all of America.

Everyone suspected everyone. Worried parents drove their children through the streets in the hope that they would recognize the places where Ray and his accomplices mocked them. The police searched twenty-one houses, seven offices, three churches, two airports and a farm in vain. By 1985, children who had been tormented by psychologists for two years began to include in their stories not only McMartin employees, but also neighbors and everyone they knew.

Read also

Not only California was in a fever. In the age of sensationalized media, paranoia knows no bounds. Over 19In 1985, the US police received a million false calls related to possible criminal acts against children. Now sociologists explain the insanity of those years with parental guilt. Kindergartens in America became widespread only in the late 70s. More and more women gave up the role of housewives and went to work. It was the concern for the children who had to be given under the care of strangers that created fertile ground for mass fear.

1984 to 19In 1994, ten more McMartin-like cases thundered in America. This period of persecution of private daycare workers has entered the cultural annals under the resounding title of Satanic Panic, as “Satanic rituals” were often mentioned in the allegations. It was not until much later that children, separated by thousands of miles, were seen repeating roughly the same stories. The stories they heard every day from TV, radio, and preachers stands.

Trial

By the end of the preliminary hearing, the prosecutors felt less confident. The evidence was still missing. There are no tunnels under the garden, no traces that such a large animal as a horse was sacrificed on its territory, not even a scrap of a pornographic picture. And still had to hide from the defense of the mental state of Judy Johnson. The letter, in which she confessed that she could not tell fantasy from reality, was flagged as a document that should not be sent to the defense team.

Ray Bucky with his lawyer and headline “Not Guilty”

For lack of evidence, the prosecutor agreed to drop charges against five suspects, leaving only Ray and Peggy Bucky in the dock. There was nothing on them either, but letting everyone go would mean that the taxpayers’ money was wasted for two years. When the lawyers became aware of Judy’s diagnosis and her letters (in one she wrote that Ray was levitating with her son in his arms), the prosecution panicked. Cross-examination of an unreliable witness would inevitably shake the jury. But by the time when on July 19On the 87th, the trial finally began, Judy was dead – alcohol poisoning.

Throughout the process, the bias of the judge was evident. Under the pretext of saving time, he did not give the floor to defense witnesses and for a long time did not even allow Ray’s lawyers to gain access to the video recordings of Key MacFarlane’s conversations with children.

McFarlane was the main trump card of the accusers. It was not until August 1988 that she got in line to stand at the witness stand. The defense asked to pay attention to the fact that McFarlane, although he calls himself a psychotherapist, does not have a professional license for this work. Also, she could not explain who and when taught her the “puppet” method of questioning children.

McFarlane stood her ground, considering all the absurdities in the children’s testimonies as symptoms of psychological trauma. For example, this is how she interpreted the case in court when, when asked to select photos with his rapists, a child pointed to pictures of Chuck Norris, the city prosecutor and four nuns.

Professor of Psychiatry Michael Maloney, summoned by the defense, did not leave a stone unturned from the video recordings of conversations with children made at MDI, listing gross violations in several court hearings. At the same time, copies of all the records were not provided to the lawyers, but even an insignificant part of them was enough to reveal the incompetence of MacFarlane and her assistants.

Verdict

The jury complained about being fired from their jobs, but the process dragged on and on. Two years and four months later, in January 1990, when the costs of the McMartin case had already exceeded $15 million, the prosecution and defense finished presenting their versions.

Peggy was fully acquitted on all counts, Ray partially. This meant a retrial. The second trial began in May and ended in July. The jury did not reach a unanimous decision, but the prosecutor’s office, which had long lost its former ardor, waved its hand and dropped the remaining charges.

None of the McMartin workers who were crushed by the millstones of justice received compensation. All applications were rejected. The move was given only to a class-action lawsuit for libel against one of the parents. The case was won, but according to the decision of the judge, the amount of the payment was only one symbolic dollar.

Parents watch the demolition of McMartin Kindergarten after the case ends

The 1995 HBO film Indictment: The McMartins Trial won a handful of prestigious awards. Ray Bucky changed his name, trained as a lawyer, and currently lives with his wife and child in one of the Northwestern states. His sister is still a teacher.

Currently, only one person convicted during the Satanic Panic years remains in prison. All the rest were acquitted, and some even received monetary compensation. True, many of them had to spend a significant part of their lives behind bars.

In 2005, Kyle Zirpolo, one of the child prosecutors in the case, told the Los Angeles Times that in 1984, when he was eight years old, he made up stories about the McMartins because he was praised for them and felt special. “Although I never met Ray Bucky, I told him that he was taking me somewhere on a plane. I tried to come up with something very bad. I once said that when someone in the kindergarten got a scratch, the teachers, instead of sticking a band-aid, smeared the wound with dirt. My memories were never false, I always knew that I was lying. But I thought I was helping the rest of the kids this way.”

^{Photo: Getty Images, Legion Media}

The author of the text: Boleslav Gupka

Thoughts of the Kindergarten teacher