A North Carolina elementary school teacher was apparently captured threatening students in a secret recording, parents say.
Leona Cain says her son Sammy had been trying to tell her for months that his teacher at Alderman Road Elementary School in Fayetteville was verbally abusive, but she says she didn’t believe him until she sent her 10-year-old boy to school with a recording device and heard it herself.
"I don't even like somebody to be behind me when I'm on the board, because I might get mad and pop the mess out of you and then it would be my fault because you were standing behind me," the teacher – who has not been identified – could be heard yelling on the recording, sections of which were obtained by ABC station WTVD in Durham.
The audio, recorded earlier this month, runs for four hours. “I was infuriated, I was disgusted. I was heartbroken,” Cain said later.
Other parents are also speaking out.
“My son was afraid of her,” parent Kimberly Ballez told WTVD. “He would repeat, ‘I’m scared, she scares me, she scares me.’”
Some parents have pulled their children from the classroom and the school, according to the station. Sammy is home for now.
Leona Cain shared the recording with the school’s principal, and the incident was later reported to district administrators, according to WTVD. School officials have declined to comment, saying this is a personnel matter.