High School teacher allegedly berating students
A Payne County mother is furious after she says a high school teacher berated and threatened her daughter and her classmates.
PAYNE COUNTY, Okla. (KFOR) - A Payne County mother is furious after she says a high school teacher berated and threatened her daughter and her classmates. She's posted a cell phone video on social media of the alleged incident, also saying her daughter was suspended after showing the recorded video to the school principal.
"This pisses me off. Yes, I used that word on purpose," a voice is heard saying at the beginning of the three-minute video provided by parent Megan Wood.
Wood said the video was taken by her freshman daughter at Ripley High School. She told KFOR the voice in it is her daughter's English teacher, allegedly angry about a damaged dictionary.
"If this happens again, heads will roll," the voice continued to say in the recording. "I am not playing. This is my dictionary. It is in my class. I asked the school to buy this. This book cost $22."
The voice explains that more dictionaries are coming to the class.
"If this happens again, I can guarantee you one of two things: you will buy my book and I will probably get you suspended," the voice said.
Wood said she couldn't believe her eyes when she saw the video.
"That's all very threatening, very inappropriate to say to any-aged child and just very aggressive for no reason, and the school's doing nothing about it," she expressed.
She said her daughter and her classmate -- who also took a video -- were both suspended for making cell phone recordings of the alleged incident.
Both mothers told KFOR they believe it's unjust that their daughters will be missing three days of class over this.
"I feel like it's ridiculous, honestly," Wood said. "I feel like it's giving the wrong impression to our young kids, like, 'hey you do the right thing, you report something, and you're getting in trouble for it."
"I was mad because, I mean, a teacher's not supposed to act that way anyway to a child, period," added Debbie Haley, the other mother.
Both parents have made their desire clear to Ripley Public Schools' administration.
“I think she should be fired,” Haley said. "I don’t think she needs to be around kids if that’s how she’s going to treat them and how she’s going to act.”
"I definitely feel like she needs to be fired and needs to realize you can't treat people's kids, any kids, like this," Wood said. "You can't talk to people like that and do that. You're an educator. You're supposed to be a safe space."
On Friday, KFOR called Ripley Public Schools' administration four times throughout the school day and sent two emails as well, asking for a response to the allegations. We have not heard back.