Photo: Courtesy Lopez Roca Law
Rosalba Suarez was named the 2017 “Teacher of the Year” at Banyan Elementary School in Miami, Florida. But one mom claims the veteran teacher isn’t as wonderful as the honor would make her seem.
Kandy Escotto said that last fall her 5-year-old son, Aaron, complained about going to school, and told his mother that he was a “bad boy,” according to theBradenton Herald.
“I said, ‘Why do you say something like that?’ ” Escotto recalled to the publication. “He said, ‘That’s what the teacher tells me when I don’t do my work.’ ”
Escotto complained to school officials who, she said, told her they couldn’t do anything about the allegations without proof, according to theWashington Post. So, last October, the concerned mother sent Aaron to school with a recorder in his backpack. For four days, she secretly recorded audio of the boy’s class.
“That’s not bubbling. Do you understand what bubbling is? What is bubbling? One is circle, and the other one is to bubble,” she said. “Raise your hand if you know how to bubble. Aaron doesn’t know.”
Neither Suarez nor Banyan school officials immediately responded to a request for comment from PEOPLE.
“For me to hear the things that she was saying to him,” Escotto told theHerald. “She picked him out, she singled him out, she humiliated him in front of the whole class. She talked about me in front of him. No 5-year-old should be able to go through that. That affected my family, affected him.”
The recordings were made public last week and in a statement to PEOPLE, Miami-Dade Schools officials said they are investigating the situation.
“Employee behavior, whether in word or deed, that does not conform to the values we instill in our school community is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Immediately upon learning of this audio recording and allegations, we launched an investigation. If these claims are substantiated, we will take any and all appropriate disciplinary actions. Pending the outcome of the investigation, the employee will be placed in a non-school setting once the academic year begins.”
Daisy Gonzalez-Diego, a spokeswoman for Miami-Dade County Public Schools, told thePostthat the district became aware of the recordings last week.
source: people.com
