A substitute teacher was fired from her job after parents say that learned she verbally abused a group of fourth graders at an Alabama elementary school and reportedly called them a racial slur.
According to WTVY, the incident took place on Feb. 6 at Heard Elementary School in Dothan, Alabama.
Parent Candace Wells said she learned what happened after she picked up her son Chase from school and he told her what the substitute said.
“To hear what happened, was a gut punch. You don’t bring your child to school for eight hours to be abused by anybody,” Wells said. “That’s literally what it was, verbal abuse.”
The sub allegedly referred to Chase and his fourth grade classmates as “lazy bums” and also used profanities, including a racial slur.
“To use the hard R-word, that was the biggest trigger, that was the biggest trigger because it was like I was and we were called that. His peers were also upset,” Wells stated.
Chase also reported the incident to another teacher who then notified school administrators.
Wells directly confronted the substitute who denied the allegations and talked about a different incident involving a student who wasn’t in the class.
“To hear her explanation and her own words were that ‘kids lie, I have been lied on before. This is not the first time and it won’t be the last,’” Wells recalled, adding that she was “enraged” by how the sub approached the conversation.
The day after Wells met with the sub, she visited the central office of the third-party employment agency that hired the teacher. The office notified her that the sub is no longer employed with the company.
Wells is now calling for better vetting procedures to ensure that students will be supervised and taught by competent and thoughtful educators.
“I honestly think that there needs to be more screening done for teachers and substitutes before they are put in schools with our babies,” the mother said.
In a statement to WTVY, Dothan City Schools did not comment on the incident but said, “Any conduct that diminishes a positive learning environment inside any of our district schools is always dealt with in accordance with established school board policy.”
