California daycare worker fired after allegedly putting sleeping pills into toddlers’ sippy cups

Can’t get little Tommy to settle down for a nap? What about a little help from Big Pharma's sleeping pills? Because that’s what one California-based daycare worker has been accused of doing.

59-year-old Deborah Gratz was arrested for allegedly slipping a sleeping pill into several children’s sippy cups at the Kiddie Academy childcare facility in Morgan Hill, California, about 35 kilometres south of San Jose.

Apparently, a fellow employee saw Gratz place an unidentified substance into the sippy cups and notified school officials. She allegedly admitted to a co-worker that she spiked the kids’ drinks with the sleeping aid Sominex, reports The Washington Times.

“Ms. Gratz was witnessed adding a substance to the water cups for her classroom of 10 children,” the daycare centre explains in a prepared statement. "The cups were confiscated before they came in contact with any children prior to the academy opening for business that day.”

After the witness told daycare officials, the facility administrator confronted Gratz who allegedly admitted to adding sleeping pills to the toddlers’ drinks, says a police news report.

Gratz, who had been working at Kiddie Academy for the past five years, was fired last Friday.

But according to Sgt. Troy Hoefling, police only learned about this whole ordeal on Monday.

“They made notifications internally. Unfortunately, the problem with that is not only do we not get on the case right away but we lose precious evidence,” he tells ABC News. “We only found out those cups had been washed out and rinsed.”

Police say they don’t plan to charge Kiddie Academy for not reporting the incident, but the district attorney could review the decision.

Gratz has been charged with two counts of child endangerment, and is set to appear in court later this month, police say.

She was responsible for 10 children under the age of 2.

Meanwhile, police are trying to figure out if this has happened before.

“We’ve contacted all 10 parents [of the children] that were under her care. We’ve received 30 to 35 phone calls, either past or present parents at the Kiddie Academy, so we’re still trying to determine if this has been going on for some time,” Hoefling says. “We don’t think it’s a one-time occurrence.”

Parents are puzzled by Gratz’s alleged actions.

“That’s my son’s favorite teacher. He always asked for her,” parent Maria Esparza tells KION News.

Bianca Flores, whose two-year-old was under Grantz’s care until a few weeks ago tells ABC local news station KGO that Kiddie Company didn’t tell her why Grantz was fired. Instead, she found out from a family member, who saw the story on the news.

“Sickening, sick to my stomach, I want to throw up,” Flores tells KGO. “I’m not angry, I’m just sad. Disturbing. I don’t know what to think.”