'Teacher of the Year' Under Investigation for Bullying 5-Year-Old in Florida
Rosalba Suarez might be the 2017 Teacher of the Year awardee from the Banyan Elementary School in Miami, Florida, but one mom believes that the veteran teacher does not deserve the recognition.
A parent named Kandy Escotto told Bradenton Herald that her 5-year-old son Aaron complained last fall about going to school. He also told her that he was a "bad boy."
"I said, 'Why do you say something like that?'" Escotto told the publication. "He said, 'That's what the teacher tells me when I don't do my work,'" she added.
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Escotto reportedly filed a complaint about Aaron's teacher Suarez to school principal Cheri Davis, but the principal said that she needed proof that the teacher who has a 33-year teaching career really bullied her son. That is why she decided to buy a recorder and plant it in her son's backpack for four days in October.
The conversation that was picked up by the recorder proved that Suarez humiliated Aaron and another boy by calling them "loser." Suarez also told Escotto's son that his mother was driving her crazy. She also detested him for having difficulties in learning how to bubble in a test.
"That's not bubbling. Do you understand what bubbling is? What is bubbling? One is circle, and the other one is to bubble," the esteemed teacher was heard saying in the recorder. "Raise your hand if you know how to bubble. Aaron doesn't know," she went on to say.
After hearing about the recordings, she asked the school to transfer her son to a different classroom. Since then, Aaron's behavior drastically improved. But according to Escotto's lawyer Sonia Roca, her client wanted to make sure that the incident will not happen again to other children.
The Miami-Dade Schools also released a statement in line with the allegations through WSVN News. According to the statement, "Any action that runs contrary to the values we instill in our school community will not be tolerated. The District will conduct a thorough review of this matter, and if the allegations are substantiated, we will take any and all appropriate disciplinary actions."
