The owner of a Mitchell preschool and wife to Mitchell School Board President Chris Shaw, was arrested Saturday and charged with hitting a 2-year-old boy in the face, giving him a bloody nose.
April L. Shaw, 51, Mitchell, was booked into the Lawrence County jail Saturday on a warrant for battery on a person younger than 14, a Class D felony.
Shaw, the wife of Mitchell school board President Chris Shaw, posted a $755 cash bond later in the day. She is the owner of Lollipops And Rainbows Preschool.
According to a Lawrence County Superior Court I probable cause affidavit, the boy was injured by Shaw after she struck him because he “had an accident in his pants ” at the daycare located on Dixie Highway between Bedford and Mitchell.
The mother learned about the incident and spoke with a former employee who was working the day it happened, which was sometime between October and December 2013.
The employee told the child’s mother she saw Shaw strike the 2-year-old boy causing his nose to bleed.
The child’s parents told police they did not give permission to the daycare to use corporal punishment to correct their child.
After the parents reported the incident to police, the Indiana State Police investigated. ISP Det. Brad Stille interviewed the employee who witnessed the incident.
The employee told police she saw Shaw “smack” the boy twice in the face. The employee says that just prior to striking the toddler Shaw was upset because of a problem with her daughter (who works at the preschool).
A second employee also witnessed the incident.
A forensic interviewer spoke to the child who claimed “his teacher, April, smacked him in the face while he was at school.”
The preschool, operated by Shaw and her daughter, opened in August 2010 in the former La-Or-Ma Shrine Club building.
