No Evidence Teacher Hit Kindergarten Student: Schools

Updated at 5:40 p.m.

GREENBELT, MD — There is no evidence that a kindergarten teacher at a Prince George’s County school spanked any student, says the school system, while parents who filed the complaints say school officials didn’t interview any witnesses.

The alleged incidents took place a year ago at the county’s prestigious Dora Kennedy French Immersion School in Greenbelt, a National Blue Ribbon school, reports WTOP. But parents only spoke out about the incidents recently because they say school administrators took no action on their complaints. The teacher cited in several complaints told The Washington Post she has never struck a student.

Maryland banned spanking and other forms of corporal punishment in schools in 1993, so any incident of spanking would violate state law.

Prince George’s County school system spokesman Sherrie Johnson told WJLA in a statement that an investigation found no evidence of child abuse. Parents were told about the investigation’s results at a community meeting on Thursday night.

The unidentified teacher has not been charged with a crime, and now teaches in Montgomery County as a long-term substitute.

School principal Nasser Abi has left the district, Johnson says.

Xander Faber and his wife, Alana Cole-Faber, say that in October 2014, their daughter told them that her twin brother had been spanked in front of their kindergarten class for jumping up and down while singing with the class.

Cole-Faber told Patch that parents are confused by the school system’s findings.

“Several families came forward with spanking allegations. Moreover, we know they did not interview the parents from that classroom, and I have heard from several others whose children witnessed spankings,” she said in an email. “I am not sure how you conduct an investigation without interviewing witnesses. We suspect they did not find evidence of spanking because they did not look for it.”

The teacher at the center of the corporal punishment allegations told The Washington Post that she had never spanked a child at school and that the parents’ claims are upsetting.

“It is just hurtful not only to the teaching community, but to the children and a very, very beautiful program,” the teacher told the Post.

On the Prince George’s County Advocates for Better Schools website, Cole-Faber described the experience.

“We were stunned. … He was called to the front of the class and struck until he cried,” Cole-Faber wrote. “I asked my daughter if she thought our son had been hit hard, and my daughter said, ‘The teacher hit him hard, but she hits another boy even harder’.”

She says the children gave them the names of three other children who had been struck by the teacher at school. Following a complaint by the Faber’s, the school principal reportedly confirmed that the teacher had admitted to the spankings.

Another parent told the Fabers her daughter saw spankings as recently as April of 2015.

The Post spoke to three other families about physical punishment in the Greenbelt classroom. Read the full report here.