Holy crap.

When a 14-year-old special needs student in Ohio told her father she was being bullied at school, he figured it was something that many teenagers endure.

Then he realized it was his daughter’s teachers doing the bullying.

“We were shocked,’’ he tearfully said. “We couldn’t know. We didn’t know.’’

After being told repeatedly by school administrators that his daughter was lying about being harassed and bullied, he outfitted her with a hidden tape recorder under her clothes. For the next four days, she recorded a series of abusive and cutting remarks from a teacher and a teacher’s aide at Miami Trace Middle School in Washington Courthouse, Ohio.

The father, Brian, and his daughter, Cheyanne (their last names were withheld in the interview), appeared on TODAY with their attorneys Tuesday as snippets from the secret audio tapes were played.
When asked by Ann Curry how all of this made her feel, Cheyanne simply replied, “Sad.’’

‘Are you that damn dumb?’

The tapes reveal teacher Christie Wilt and her teacher’s aide, Kelly Chaffins, saying disturbing things to Cheyanne in the classroom. Cheyanne, who is now in high school, was in Wilt’s class for three years of middle school. Chaffins has since resigned, while Wilt had to undergo eight hours of anti-bullying and child abuse training. On Monday, Wilt was put on unpaid leave for the rest of the school year, but Cheyanne’s family is hoping to prevent her from ever teaching or working with special needs students again.

Wilt, who did not respond to requests for an interview, can be heard on the recordings alongside Chaffins calling Cheyanne “lazy” and “dumb.”

“Cheyanne, are you kidding me? Are you that damn dumb? You are that dumb?’’ Chaffins can be heard saying in one instance. “Oh my God. You are such a liar. You told me you don’t know. It’s no wonder you don’t have friends. No wonder nobody likes you because you lie, cheat.’’

There's a video on the story, with an interview with the family, along with the original recording of the teachers' bullying.

I agree w/ Beautiful Lies.
There's a special place in hell for this kind of person.

Um, wow. I think there's a special place in hell for people that do things like that. How insecure do you have to be to belittle a special needs child? Neither of those women should be allowed inside a classroom again.

Sickening. That teacher should have been fired, not put on unpaid leave.

@Beth: I imagine she's on unpaid leave because they're going through the firing process with the school board and the union. It's hard as shit to fire a teacher, but you already knew that. ;)

@Lady Anon - at least it's unpaid. I know someone who was on paid leave for something similar, because it couldn't be proved as the client had a communication disability, and couldn't clearly communicate what had happened to the investigators. A year of paid leave, including annual pay rise, until he got fired! Bloody ridiculous.

@Lady Anon: I watched the video. Not only was her license revoked for a year she has to complete a training and upon completion of training she can go back into the classroom after her year is up. So, no she is not being put on unpaid leave to be fired. They only did it because the press got wind of it and they didn't want to look like they condone what those idiots did.

I imagine the teacher was put on unpaid leave to avoid conflict with a union. Their employment will most likely end after the spring semester, and I doubt they will be able to get employment afterwards.

It's good that this story came to light, and that her parents believed her.

Winged Centaur: And this is just ONE instance why I am VEHEMENTLY against Teacher's Unions and most unions of any kind.

Totally agree.

This made me sick.

Sadly, I don't imagine this is very unusual. Quite a lot of people go into teaching for the power. Kids with special needs are particularly vulnerable and often don't have the ability to report the teacher. They can also infuriate a power-hungry teacher because they may seem to be stubborn, not complying with what the teacher wants, and may also sometimes having challenging behaviour. It becomes a power game, in which the teacher will do anything to subdue the child, and will inevitably win (unless they get caught, as in this case - but realistically, most kids don't go into school with a tape-recorder hidden under their clothes).

What the hell? Power trip much?

This is disgusting. I'm glad they caught them at it. They shouldn't be allowed to work with any children again.

I wish I'd thought of the hidden recorder when I was 9 and witnessed similar abuse on a daily basis, of a classmate with cerebral palsy. The abuser was his care worker, not our teacher, but it was no less obvious, and no less awful to see.

That's terrible. The school I went to, in Edmonds, Washington had an amazing special education center. A lot of the special needs children were in regular classrooms most of the day and I remember loving the teachers and their aids. It makes me so upset that people could do this. I agree with Beautiful Lies and *-.Stephanie.-* -special place in hell. Sadly, this goes on all over the Country and those poor kids will have to keep enduring it.

This woman shouldn't be allowed to EVER teach again. Other punishments should be called names like she did to her student. I bet if it was turned on her she would be very upset.