Child Care Facility Asked Me Not To Report Abuse Of My Child

Does anyone know the consequences of this behavior?

Before you dog me for being stupid or naive, trust me, I KNOW. I’m here for thoughtful advice and help, not more pain. I share an ethnic background and culture with the facility owners and for that reason my reactions to the situation was influenced.

I live in the state of California county is Alameda. I’ve done a good amount of research but can’t find information about the consequences or my rights to pursue legal action in this situation:

My child suffered emotional abuse that I witnessed first hand. I informed another teacher and confronted the teacher who did it, no one at the facility reported it, then the abuse escalated and my child told me he was struck in the face by the same teacher. Once he did, I immediately sent them an email and withdrew him from the school. They called me and told me to come back and wanted to resolve it. At NO point did they report my allegation. They brought me back for a meeting with the teacher where I confronted her directly. She obviously denied it. They told me they believed her and accused my child of lying. They offered to switch my child’s class. We tried to continue since they appeared to be soooo nice (eye roll) but the energy was so incredibly toxic and my child continued to have nightmares and still was losing weight, not sleeping and having extreme anxiety. At no point did he ever accuse any other teacher or adult of abuse. So I removed him. After a few weeks of not attending, he began to behave normally again, regained weight and began to open up about what happened to him there. I took him to a psychologist and we determined that the abuse did in fact occur. I called DSS and (stupidly) informed the owners of the school that I was reporting the teacher and I asked for my deposit money back and to be refunded for the last month that we paid in full but barely attended, and when we did it was so stressful and awkward. I was naive and thought the owners would want to help and do the right thing. The next morning, after I’d initiated the report, the owner calls me directly and begs me not to report making statements like “you’re like a daughter to me” and “nothing will happen to the teacher but we will have a lot of stress and drama from it” and “life isn’t fair” but he did agree to refund me. To be very clear, I had ALREADY reached out to report and did not try to receive a refund in exchange for NOT reporting. After this 30 min manipulative conciliation, I broke down crying, truly believing that there would be no consequences for the teacher and that I was just stressing out “innocent” owners who “loved” me. I agreed not to follow up on the report.

A couple weeks later he sends me an email telling me “I feel bad for you” and “I’m gonna help you out with a partial refund cause I know your situation” he’s referring to me being low income and a single mother with a very limited support group. Things I had revealed (like a dumbass) when we were on better terms. The amount was half of what I originally asked for prior to the phone call. This behavior was the moment I fully understood I was being absolutely stupid and allowing these people to disrespect the f out of me. I told him he can shove his refund up his a** and I went ahead and reported. I was pretty candid about my sequence of actions to DSS. I felt like he slapped me in my face, so I returned the slap with a yelp review which stated the facts, nothing too nasty and only stuck to my truthful experience. I got an email from his lawyer when he got contacted by DSS and the lawyer attempted to absolutely demonize me and make it out like I was extorting him. Thankfully ya girl clapped back with receipts and timelines and even a voicemail where he was telling me how nothing was gonna happen to the teacher. I’m in the midst of this now, but I’m curious if anyone has thoughts on if I should pursue this in court? Any similar experiences?