A North Carolina teacher allegedly kissed a 5-year-old autistic student in a school bathroom — but police dropped the case because the nonverbal victim can’t point a finger at her abuser, The Post has learned.
The unnamed pervert was caught cornering little Journey on March 28 by another staff member, who reported the disturbing incident to administrators at Blythe Elementary School, the girl’s mother claimed.
“They didn’t even remove my daughter after, they just left her in the classroom after it happened,” Elizabeth Szumski fumed in a phone interview.
“They said they removed the staff member from the classroom and sent her home for the day, but they didn’t contact the police, but that’s all they could tell us. So I called the police.”
Szumski is now worried the disturbing behavior had been going on much longer — Journey, who was once eager to go to school everyday, had been crying every morning when it was time to leave the house.
The situation is even more unsettling because Szumski and her husband met with Journey’s teacher earlier that week to discuss her daughter’s dramatic change in behavior, but the concerned parents were told they needed to do a better job helping the kindergartener acclimate to the new school.
“I said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with her. In the morning she wakes up very happy, but the moment she sees her backpack is when she has a meltdown. There’s clearly a problem here.’ And they kind of just brush it off,” said Szumski.
“She can’t tell me what’s bothering her. I’m never going to know. It’s a guessing game and if I’m not there, I can’t see what’s bothering her. So they’re putting it on me, but I don’t have a problem when she’s with me.”
According to an incident report, the staff member was removed from the classroom, but not from the school, as the district conducts an investigation.
Despite Szumski taking the incident to Huntersville cops, no charges have been filed — and the mother said the case was dropped altogether because Journey “cannot tell her side of the story.”
“I started crying because, like [they] said, she can’t tell her side of the story. Why are you not thinking harder? Why are we not trying to figure out why she had such a hard time going to school?” Szumski said.
The disturbing incident — and the alleged subsequent mishandling — has left Szumski feeling hopeless, and guilty that she did not know what was going on with her daughter.
“I don’t know what she’s endured. And I’ll never find out.That is something that’s so hard to just accept and move on from because I’ll always have fear when she’s not with me. Because she’ll never be able to tell me,” she told The Post.
Neither the Huntersville Police Department, Blythe Elementary School or Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools responded to requests for comment.
In a statement to Queen City News, the district said it was “aware of the alleged incident.”
“Due to privacy laws, we are unable to share any details or information regarding the investigation. I want to assure you that we take the safety and well-being of our students very seriously.”
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