Children's Land Of Imagination Academy - Odessa FL Child Care Facility

Stay away from this daycare. The owner Judy “Liu Rong” and another teacher Tara Ballou were arrested for child abuse. They have been caught slapping, grabbing, and pinning them down by the neck. They put their own body weight on kids to force them down to nap, there’s video footage of it and you see these poor babies legs and arms moving rapidly wanting to get up, but can’t. It’s truly evil they attack children who cannot defend themselves or speak up.
Do NOT take your children here.

Owner/director is abusive to both children as well as employees. "Judy" aka Rong Liu was arrested on 8/19/22 for felony child abuse. Please do not send your children here.....

I am making this review under an anonymous account due to fear of retaliation from the owners. After working at this center for over a year, I have seen first-hand a concerning amount of wrongdoing by the owners, directed both at employees and children. It should also be noted that the problems with the center are not because of the teachers, who are amazing at their jobs and are doing their best despite horrible management.
Currently, the director of this center, Judy Liu, is under investigation for two separate child abuse reports. Having been interviewed by the investigators while I still worked at this daycare, I learned what the allegations were, and having worked here, I can confirm that they are true. The allegations include Judy hitting children on their heads with books, grabbing children by the arms so hard she leaves marks and even one time making a six-year-old girl bleed, leaving children in the highchair for hours on end as a form of punishment, and much more. I have seen all of this occur first-hand and am thankful for the teacher who had the courage to report it.
On top of the two ongoing child abuse investigations against Judy, she has also received seven violations from the licensing office since May 31. The violations are for the following:
1. Not having proof of a background check for an employee.
2. Failing to provide adequate supervision of children- two one-year-olds were left alone in the kitchen by Judy while they were eating and another one-year-old was found running down the hallway with no teacher in sight.
3. Exceeding room capacities set by the licensing office, creating a fire hazard.
4. Not posting the room capacities in the classroom.
5. Failing to make water available for children on the outdoor playground.
6. Not providing age-appropriate food to children in care, creating a choking hazard.
7. Refusing to allow child abuse investigators to review video footage as a part of an ongoing investigation.

In addition to the child abuse investigation and Judy’s multiple licensing violations, I have personally witnessed the mistreatment of children and employees by Judy. A major problem at the center is that there are too many children and not enough teachers. Judy refuses to stop enrolling children despite every classroom being full, leading to kids being shuffled around constantly and not being adequately watched or cared for. On multiple occasions, Judy has left children in rooms alone with the lights off, forgetting they were there. On one occasion, the one-year-old classroom had too many kids, so Judy brought a child with her to the playroom adjacent to the kitchen while she prepared lunch. The child was left alone in the playroom with nobody watching her and eventually, the child fell asleep in the room and wasn’t found until over an hour later (After lunch was over when nobody was in the kitchen or playroom). On another occasion, Judy brought a two-year-old child inside from the playground to change her diaper but got distracted, leaving the girl alone in the bathroom for 45 minutes. The next day, she did the same thing, except she left the child alone for an hour this time.
Another serious problem at this center is the food that’s provided. Judy makes small amounts of food that then need to be stretched out through all the age groups and if she gives one age group too much, the last group to eat gets little to no food. For example, the serving size for vegetables is no more than a spoon full and if a teacher prepares a plate with more than that, she makes them put it back and says, “They won’t eat that much anyways”.
When the baby playground is in use it operates as another classroom since every one of her classes has too many kids enrolled. Judy will leave the kids outside for hours, even if it’s extremely hot outside. On one occasion it was pouring rain, but she still sent a group of infants and one-year-olds to the baby playground and when a teacher tried to stop her, she justified it by saying that they like watching the rain and that it was good for them.
On several occasions, Judy has verbally and physically mistreated employees as well. Examples of Judy’s verbal mistreatment include calling teachers stupid, making comments behind their backs about their weight and smell (then telling them that they need to lose weight), telling teachers that the reason their child has a learning delay is because they’re a bad mother, and talking badly about a teacher’s family to them and other teachers. Examples of Judy’s physical abuse include putting her hands around a teacher’s neck, shoving a teacher down the hallway while she was holding an infant because she was “walking too slow”, and throwing a child’s snack at a teacher when she was upset. Additionally, Judy doesn’t allow the teachers to be friends with each other, saying that it will lead to gossiping, even though the only gossiping occurring is from Judy.
Lastly, it should be noted the amount of labor law violations Judy has committed. These include not paying overtime, taking money from teachers' paychecks without their consent, cutting teachers' pay down to minimum wage as a consequence for quitting, and not paying teachers for trainings she makes them come to on their days off. All of these are in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which Florida abides by.
If anything is to be taken away from this information, it should be that this is not a safe environment for your child. The teachers are amazing, but the director makes it impossible for them to do their jobs and properly care for the children. Despite warnings from teachers and the licensing office, Judy continues to mismanage and mistreat children and employees to the point of no return. This center needs to be closed down immediately, but in the meantime, do not send your children here.

The director, teachers, and atmosphere as a whole is loving, kind, and truly special! My kids have been in the infant room all the way through their afterschool program and loved it! The director makes and effort to have a special relationship with each family and does a fantastic job. My kids all loved their teachers and have so much fun here. It is truly a great place!

I have taught at a daycare facility before and now I am on the other side, with my granddaughter needing one, and I can tell you this is an excellent school for children. Miss Judy and all the teachers I have encountered are excellent and very professional. They are caring and have the children’s best interest in mind. Our two year old counts to 25 and knows her ABCs. This is all thanks to the preschool. Our granddaughter loves to come and is excited every day she has school. It is almost like a big family at the center. I would highly recommend Children’s Land of Imagination Academy to my friends who are looking for an exceptional and loving environment for their child.

The owners are very rude. They do not follow state guidelines in their center. They bring in random people off of the street to watch your kids. There is no organization in the child's day or even the employees day. Do not work here. They will hire you as a teacher and then make you do all of their dirty work for you. They will make you clean other people's messes and do other people's work for them. Overall, the whole place is a mess and there is no organization to the facility. 10/10 do not recommend.

My son attended this school for almost 2 years – from the age of 3 months until 22 months. I would not recommend this daycare to anyone. My mistake was not removing him sooner.

After expressing concern to the co-owner about high teacher turnover, asking if they have enough staff to watch the children, and expressing concern that their business appears to be going downhill, the owner kicked my child out with a 5 day notice. They didn’t even do this in person – they put a letter in the sign-in book for me to find when I dropped my son off this morning. (

To be fair and balanced in my review, here are the positives about this place, and why I chose to keep my child here as long as I did:
- New & extremely clean.
- Sweet, caring teachers.
- Accommodate cloth diapers.
- Serve fresh fruit & veggies
- Location – not many daycares in the area

And the negatives:
- Extremely high turnover: Several past and present employees have made comments to me that they are unhappy and not treated well by the owners. Unsurprisingly, this is has led to a very high teach turnover rate. There are 5 classrooms, which mean there should be a minimum of 5-6 teachers on staff at all times. Here’s a listing of the teacher names I can recall that have been there and left – some for as little as one day, some stuck it out for more than a year: Ashley, Amber, Betsy, Denise, Denise, Ericka, Erica, Heather, Kim, Jessica, Kayla, Lauren, Latrese, Melissa, Mimi, Paige, Patty, Robby, Sylvia, Tracy. I’m sure there are more that I’m forgetting. That’s at least 20 people that have joined and left a company of 6ish employees in less than two years.

- Improper supervision of children: I have personally witnessed teachers standing in the hallway between two classes to supervise them both at the same time – for example, the infants and 1 year olds. The Child Care Licensing Program also has investigated complaints from parents for being over ratio and leaving children without supervision in a classroom. You can go to the office in person to view the file for yourself (3152 Clay Mangum Lane, Tampa, FL 33618).

- Lack of structure and consistency: I never knew where I would find my child at the end of the day, or who he was with. Sometimes he was with the infants, sometimes he was with 2’s, sometimes he was the lone 1 year old with the after-school children. The last few weeks, I found my son sitting in the cafeteria with the school age children and a teacher – or I found him wandering in the lobby with owner Daoshan (not a teacher!) while the teacher was back mopping floors and the older children were watching TV unsupervised.

- Improper training of new staff: When my son was an infant, I would often find his name on his back with a piece of tape – since there were always new staff coming in, that’s how they could tell the children apart, since they didn’t take time to train or acclimate the new teachers.

- Not focused on the children: At first I really was impressed at how clean the place was, but every time I went they were vacuuming, mopping, bleaching… not sure how they can properly care for the children when all they seem to do is clean.

- Another safety concern: they leave outside doors propped open during the day! A child could easily get outside, or a person from the outside could jump the fence and get inside. What good is a code on the entry door when every other exterior door is hanging open? I have asked Judy about this and she says it’s for fresh air, and the children are safe because the playgrounds are fenced.

In summary, this business is terribly mismanaged, and is definitely not the type of place anyone would feel comfortable placing their children.