The abuse began almost immediately after 6-year-old Karter Crain enrolled at Robert Nathaniel Dett Elementary School on Chicago’s west side, according to his mother.
In December 2022, Karter showed his mother a bite mark on his hand left by another student.
“I wasn’t notified,” the boy’s mother, Shaneka Crain, told CBS News Chicago. “There wasn’t any accident reports, incident reports. I didn’t receive one phone call.”
Then Karter started coming home with bruises. It would only get worse. In March 2023, Karter, who has been diagnosed with behavioral and developmental delays, told his mother that two of his teachers had hit him.
“Ms. (redacted) pop me in my head and Ms. (redacted) pop me with the marker in my head too,” he said.
This time, Crain didn’t wait for the school to act. She filed a police report to document the alleged abuse. She also placed her son in therapy.
“My son needs help. He needs therapeutic help,” she said.
Crain also filed a complaint with the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS). That same, she learned an anonymous complaint had been filed against her. Both complaints were eventually dismissed.
“When you stand up for your child, they started to retaliate on me. They put DCFS cases on me,” she said.
The single mother would soon learn that Karter was far from the only victim at Dett Elementary. According to My Voice, My School surveys, administered by Chicago’s public school system, one in five students reported not feeling safe or comfortable with their teachers at Dett.
Another 57 percent of the students said they did not trust their teachers. And nearly one-third of the teachers said they don’t trust each other. It’s also one of the worst schools for misconduct by students.
Dett has been among the lowest-performing schools in Illinois. All but six percent of the student body qualifies as low-income; 15 percent are homeless.
Chicago school officials have declined comment.
“I think they need to start listening to the parents, Crain said. “Parents’ voices definitely and concerns need to be heard,” Crain said. “I feel they need to have a lot of training, retraining, or whatever it is for people who actually work with kids.”
She said she couldn’t even get a meeting to discuss the abuse Karter had endured until the end of the 2022-23 school year. But the sit-down with school officials and the two teachers Karter accused of hitting him ended without a resolution.
“Nobody’s listening. Nobody’s hearing me. Nobody cares,” Crain said.
But she was able to transfer him to another school, though it’s still one of the worst-performing schools in the state, needing “comprehensive support” to improve, according to the Illinois School Report Card.
Crain said she will continue to speak out.
“I just want my voice to be heard when it comes to my son, because this cannot, it can’t be acceptable,” she said.
