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On the morning of Feb. 29, 2024, an aide at Winzler Children’s Center was arrested on charges of child abuse for allegedly throwing a four-year-old preschooler against a wall the previous afternoon. 

Rice. | Submitted.

At the time, Elizabeth Rice was in her second year as director of early childhood development and special education at the Eureka preschool. She hadn’t witnessed the incident, but she’d been dealing with the fallout: notifying her supervisor, calling the child’s parents, speaking with staff and being interviewed by a police officer.

The violent event and its immediate aftermath were traumatic and frustrating, Rice said in a recent interview — frustrating because for months she’d been requesting extra help to manage the students, several of whom had challenging behavioral issues. Some had been diagnosed with severe autism. Others were prone to violent outbursts or running out of the classroom.

“There was some really dangerous and scary behaviors happening,” Rice said. “Teachers were overwhelmed and stressed.”

She had asked for additional classroom staff and outside agency support including one-on-one aides, board-certified behavioral analysts and school psychologists. But her requests were denied, with her immediate supervisor, Winzler Director of Student Services Lisa Claussen, citing the cost, among other factors.

The aide who’d allegedly thrown the child into a wall, Alice Hellen Abler, was briefly alone in a classroom with seven kids shortly before she “snapped,” as Rice put it. According to official reports, Abler reacted after the kid snatched a toy away from a three-year-old girl, causing her to cry. An aide witnessed this. Afterward, the victim was sore but had no marks or bruises. (Abler’s case remains open pending a mental health diversion hearing. “She’s petitioned for that [diversion] and we’re opposed,” District Attorney Stacey Eades said in an email.)

What Rice didn’t know at the time was that the fallout from the incident would completely derail her career in early childhood education, a career she’d spent nearly two decades building.

The incident took place on a Wednesday. By the following Tuesday, Rice was ready to move forward.

“I had done the reports, contacted my supervisor [and] the parents, I talked to the police officer, and now we were working on how to heal as a group and recover from this,” she said. Instead, around 10 a.m., Claussen came to Rice’s office and told her she was being placed on administrative leave, pending the results of an internal investigation. 

That Friday, Claussen called to inform Rice that her contract was being terminated effective June 30. When Rice asked why, Claussen said she didn’t have to provide a reason since Rice was a probationary employee, she said.

She later learned that the Eureka City Schools Board of Trustees had chosen not re-elect her as director, and she stood accused of violating school policy by failing to immediately report the abuse to law enforcement, the California Department of Social Services (DSS) and the child’s parents, and then allowing Abler to return to work the following day.

“They told me that I could either have ‘terminated’ on my record or else I could resign,” Rice said. “I didn’t know what to do. I felt pressured.”

Not seeing any other options, she submitted her letter of resignation on March 14 of last year, as the Outpost reported shortly thereafter. In it, she defended her job performance, expressed doubts about the validity of the internal investigation being conducted and wrote, “I feel blindsided by the district’s decision to terminate my employment.”

From there, things got worse. An investigation by DSS upheld the allegations, based largely on the testimony of Claussen. The state investigator later admitted that he never spoke with Rice to get her account of what happened, saying his supervisor advised against it while law enforcement was investigating the matter. 

As a result of the investigation, DSS’s Community Care Licensing Division issued an exclusion order against Rice, permanently banning her from working or even being in any facility licensed by the department or certified by a licensed foster family agency, including not just child care centers but also adult residential facilities and senior care facilities. 

Rice was informed that she had a right to appeal the decision, and after reading the conclusions in the investigation report she was determined to do so.

“I decided, ‘This is not right; this is not what happened,’” Rice said. She hired Ferndale attorney Amelia Burroughs to help write her appeal letter and then waited months for a hearing before an administrative law judge. 

“I had a lot of anxiety, because not only had I lost my job, now I had this hearing looming over me,” she said. “I knew my truth and I followed the law and I did everything according to what my supervisor told me to do.” Regardless, she experienced “a long sense of anxiety and doom” waiting for the opportunity to defend herself.

When the hearing was finally held in November, the administrative law judge, Matthew S. Block, interviewed Rice as well as the teacher’s aide who witnessed the incident and the DSS licensing program analyst who conducted the initial investigation. His decision, which includes factual findings that directly contradict the allegations against Rice, was officially adopted at the end of January, 11 months after the incident occurred. He dismissed all of the allegations against Rice and lifted the exclusion order. 

Below are some of the details from Block’s decision. Rice faced five accusations in the case, namely that she:

1. failed to check on the child’s welfare after being informed of the incident;
2. failed to contact law enforcement after being informed of the incident;
3. failed to contact the child’s parents about the incident in a timely manner;
4. failed to report the incident to Child Protective Services in a timely manner; and
5. failed to prevent Abler from returning to work after the reported incident.

Block found that the facts contradicted all five of those charges. In the initial investigation, it was Claussen who alleged that Rice didn’t follow Winzler’s protocol for contacting parents after an unusual incident is reported. However, she was unable to provide the investigator with a copy of any such policy or state when it was enacted.

Claussen also told the investigator that Rice had waited roughly four hours before notifying the victim’s parents about what happened. But at the hearing that same investigator admitted that Rice had contacted them far earlier and had asked witnesses to document what they observed.

Again, the investigator’s recommendation for an exclusion order against Rice was based on Claussen’s testimony, but at the hearing in November he said he now believed Rice had “addressed the incident in a timely manner, and that she did not violate any of the laws regarding mandated reporting,” the ruling states.

Rice had spoken with the victim’s mom on Feb. 28, not long after the incident occurred, and later that evening she followed up with an email letting the mom know that Abler would be fired in the morning and reports would be submitted to Child Protective Services and Winzler’s state licensing agency.

“Thank you so much,” the mom replied. “I can only imagine how hard it is to have to make a phone call like this. Probably nearly as awful as it is to get the call. I appreciate the honesty and integrity of those who had the courage to report what they saw. My deep appreciation for the quick action taken on behalf of my baby.”

As promised, Abler was arrested for child abuse the next morning at about 8 a.m. It was the investigating officer with the Eureka Police Department who suggested letting Abler to return to work that morning so she could be interviewed. Rice said Claussen also advised her to let Abler come back the next morning so she could collect her name tag and release her.

Following the officer’s advice, Rice “contacted the Winzler office secretary and instructed her to have Abler go directly to the office when she arrived at school, so she would have no contact with the children who were being dropped off for the day,” Block’s ruling says.

Rice filed the necessary reports in a timely manner and over the next few days “notified the parents of every child who witnessed the incident and ensured them that Abler would not be returning to the school,” according to Block.

The Outpost reached out to Claussen and Eureka City Schools Superintendent Gary Storts to ask about this case and the discrepancies between Claussen’s allegations and the administrative law judge’s findings. Claussen replied via email:

As a general policy, we don’t comment on personnel matters. However, I can share that Winzler has made great strides in both enrollment and rebuilding community trust. This is due to the hard work and dedication of the personnel on that campus, who have weathered a trying time and remained committed to our students and community.

Storts also replied via email, saying only, “ECS cannot comment on confidential personnel and student matters.”

The Outpost requested a copy of the investigation report from the Eureka Police Department but was told that state law prevents the public disclosure of child abuse reports.

Looking back, Rice said it feels like she was set up to fail and then thrown under the bus by Eureka City Schools, and by Claussen in particular. 

“She wanted to cover her own ass and the district’s reputation,” Rice said. “I just feel really lucky that I had the resources to be able to gain this advocacy and [hire] an attorney to support me.” She also got support from friends, teachers, Winzler parents and early childhood education professionals, with 15 people submitting letters of support to the DSS.

Rice feels that she was left in the dark during the initial investigation and never given due process from DSS’s Community Care Licensing Division or from Eureka City Schools. The impacts to her life were severe.

“I had to seek mental health support for this,” she said. “I went to a therapist, I started medication temporarily, my family finances were affected. It affected me on a deep, personal level that wasn’t necessary. It was all very heartbreaking.”

Rice now works for a local nonprofit, supporting seniors and adults with disabilities. 

“I never thought I would do this work, but this is where I’ve landed,” she said. Even though she’s been cleared to work with kids again, Rice said it’s been hard to imagine applying for another job in early childhood education “because my name was in the media and it made it seem like I didn’t report child abuse.”

But at the request of one local family, she’s now working part time for Changing Tides Family Services as a respite worker for a child with special needs.

“I love working with preschool-aged children and have a lot of respect for ECE [early childhood education] teachers and the profession,” she said.

Rice spent 15 years working at Cal Poly Humboldt’s Children’s Center, starting when she was just a student. She also worked for Head Start and the College of the Redwoods Child Development Center. She earned her Master of Education degree from CPH in 2021. 

Asked if she might return someday to working in early childhood education, Rice said it’s not out of the question “because that’s a lot of where my passion lies.”

She may never go back to being a classroom teacher or preschool administrator but sees opportunities to join the field in another way, possibly by working on policy or in a job affiliated with the California Department of Education.

“But for now I do feel like I am still recovering,” she said, “and I’m jaded from that experience.”