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The parents of five Colorado children have sued a chain of child care centers, alleging that its owners and several staff members failed to protect their children from a teacher who they say hit, shoved, and kicked the 2-year-olds, threw water on them to wake them up, used racial slurs, and yelled in their faces
The families filed the lawsuit in Colorado district court Jan. 13 against The Nest Schools, a national chain that has seven Colorado locations, including one in Centennial where the teacher, Brandon Vigil, worked. Vigil was sentenced earlier this month after pleading guilty to misdemeanor child abuse charges.
Besides alleging a series of individual failures that led a former cook with no teaching experience to become a lead teacher who abused toddlers, the suit claims a structural cause: The Nest’s backing by a private-equity investment firm, Rockbridge Growth Equity. Such investors prioritize growth and profit, the suit alleges, which can lead to high staff turnover and a push to increase enrollment at the expense of child safety.
About 15% of child care seats for young children in Colorado are housed in centers with private-equity backing or ownership, according to a 2025 Chalkbeat analysis. Besides The Nest Schools, they include chains like KinderCare, Primrose Schools, and Goddard Schools.
Some Colorado lawmakers have expressed concern recently about the role of private equity in child care, saying that the ownership structure can lower the quality of care, harm workers, and raise prices for families.
Last year, several Democratic lawmakers sought new guardrails on child care chains backed by private equity or venture capital firms, but their bill died in April. Sen. Cathy Kipp, a Fort Collins Democrat and one of the bill sponsors, told Chalkbeat by email this month that there are no plans to run a similar bill this year.
“Sometimes the problem has to get worse before people are willing to address it,” she said.
Lawsuit names center employees, company executives
The abuse cited in the families’ lawsuit occurred in Vigil’s toddler classroom in the summer of 2024.
The lawsuit alleges The Nest leaders and employees placed the children in dangerous conditions and failed to monitor the classroom even though children routinely screamed and cried. It also alleges that some of the defendants, who were employees at the Centennial center during Vigil’s tenure, saw him mistreating children and failed to report suspected child abuse as required by law.
Among the nine defendants named in the lawsuit are Gerry Pastor and Jane Porterfield, the husband and wife who are co-CEOs of The Nest Schools, which is based in Delaware. Pastor said by email that he and Porterfield could not comment on the lawsuit for legal reasons.
Vigil started at The Nest’s Centennial location as a cook and later assumed a teaching position in the “Cardinals A” toddler classroom, the lawsuit says. The director who hired him, promoted him, and is one of the defendants in the lawsuit, described him as “happy go lucky” and said her only issue with his performance as cook was that he was late for work, according to a state investigation report.
It’s not clear from the report what training or other requirements Vigil had to complete to become a child care teacher. Following open records requests by Chalkbeat last spring, state officials said the results of Vigil’s background check are not public and that the state doesn’t retain child care personnel files or training certificates.
A substitute teacher’s aide reported Vigil to authorities in September 2024, according to state inspection reports. State officials who investigated found that Vigil regularly dished out physical and verbal abuse to the children in his care. He threw toddlers in the air to scare them, threw their belongings in the trash, and slammed a child’s face and body into a glass window several times. He called children in his classroom “ugly” and “disgusting.”
He called one child “Kim Jong Un,” apparently referring to the North Korean dictator, and told another, “You better stay in school, girl, because that’s all you got going for you,” according to the investigation reports.
Classroom cameras captured the abuse, according to state inspection reports. The lawsuit notes that only 30 days of video footage was available because earlier footage had been deleted or overwritten by The Nest staff.
Vigil’s last day at the center was Sept. 5, 2024. That was when the aide subbing in his classroom reported Vigil to law enforcement for hitting a child with an open hand and directing a racial slur at the child, the lawsuit says.
Vigil was arrested on 51 criminal charges, including 28 counts of child abuse. In December, he pleaded guilty to three counts of misdemeanor child abuse as part of a plea deal. In early January, he was sentenced to two years in Arapahoe County jail.
Three of The Nest’s locations are on state probation
Subsequent state inspection reports and other documents detailing Vigil’s mistreatment of children paint a picture of a child care center in disarray — with management often absent because of problems at two other Colorado centers in The Nest Schools chain. One of those centers was the chain’s Highlands Ranch location, which closed for more than a week that summer after Nest officials failed to submit construction plans to the county health department or get construction permits from the building division.
Three of The Nest Schools’ seven Colorado locations are currently on probation, according to state records. They include the Centennial location where Vigil worked, the Aurora location, and one of two Littleton locations. When child care centers violate state health and safety rules, state officials can place them on probation and require frequent inspections.
Pastor said by email that the three centers have taken corrective actions and that he and Porterfield anticipate they will be released from probation in the near future.
“While the circumstances leading to these actions were concerning to us, we have addressed the issues identified, reinforced our standards and expectations and used the process as an opportunity to strengthen our programs,” he said.
Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.
