Day care worker says she can’t explain cursing kids video

Coaxed by an adult off camera, small children gleefully use filthy language in a 22-second video shot at a Pennsylvania day care, posted on Facebook and viewed nearly 170,000 times since October.

Prosecutors on Thursday filed a corruption of minors charge against the video’s alleged creator, Rashanna Gyles, 24, of Allentown.

Gyles was a bus monitor at Creative Minds Daycare Academy in early October when prosecutors say she instructed a half-dozen children to direct obscenities toward another child. She made videos of the cursing kids and sent one to a friend, who called police and the day care, according to Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin.

Gyles, who was arraigned Thursday and released on unsecured bail, said she can’t explain why she did it.

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” she told The Associated Press in a brief phone interview on Thursday.

Gyles was fired from the Allentown day care when the Oct. 4 incident came to light. Last week, the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services revoked the day care’s operating license, citing the “harsh and demeaning language” in the video as well as several other unrelated violations.

Creative Minds said Thursday it will appeal the revocation. It can remain open while appealing the decision.

“People that know us, know that the people who work here are good people, and they understand that this was an isolated incident,” said Elizabeth Saleb, the day care’s president.

The facility, which opened in 2009, remains filled to its 36-child capacity and has a waiting list, she added.

The person who posted the video online wrote on Facebook that she did so “because I feel like you should be able to send your toddlers to daycare without having to worry about people doing this to them. … I am beyond disgusted.”

A magistrate set a Dec. 22 preliminary hearing date for Gyles.