Second lawsuit filed over alleged abuse at Kroc Center

Kuira Young says that in her 2-1/2-year-old son’s first week of preschool at the Kroc Keiki Learning Center’s Opihi classroom in August 2017, he began complaining of ear aches and demonstrating unusual behavior.

The Salvation Army, which runs the preschool near Kapolei, said it fired the Opihi classroom’s lead teacher in February 2018 after an internal investigation found that the teacher, Illana Wright, lifted students off the floor and yelled in their ears, cupped her hands around their ears while yelling at them and committed other forms of abusive behavior.

The organization said it also fired the director of the learning center, Margot M. Mesinas, for failing to inform supervisors or police after receiving reports of possible mistreatment by Wright nearly a year earlier.

An investigation by the state Department of Human Services’ Child Care Licensing program confirmed the results of The Salvation Army’s investigation.

Along with Mesinas and Wright, the abused boy’s mother is suing The Salvation Army, its Hawaiian and Pacific Islands Division commander, the executive director of the center’s early childhood education and its director of operations and human resources. Young filed her lawsuit in state court Aug. 1. It is the second lawsuit filed against The Salvation Army and its employees over Wright’s and Mesinas’s actions.

Joan and Mark Megna filed their lawsuit in June after their daughter, a student in Wright’s Opihi class, complained of ear aches.

After the Megnas and Young filed their lawsuits, The Salvation Army said in a written statement that it fully cooperated with the state investigation and hopes to resolve the lawsuits quickly. Wright and Mesinas could not be reached for comment.

According to the DHS investigation, there were 11 preschool children assigned to the Opihi classroom when Wright was the lead teacher.