'I hit harder': Carson City mother says Special Education teacher threatened second-grade autistic child

“If you hit me, I will hit you. I’m stronger, and hit harder.”

These are words one might expect a school child to hear on the playground, but according to one mother, those words came from her autistic son’s Special Education teacher.

Jeannie Fillmore stated when she got a call from her son Brayden’s second-grade teacher at Bordewich Bray stating an incident had occurred, she thought nothing of it.

“I got a call from his teacher on Friday and she told me my son had hit her,” said Jeannie. “She told me he was upset and didn’t want to come inside after a water balloon fight because he wanted to stay out longer, and she and an aide had to carry him back inside.”

Jeannie said her son having to be carried in was understandable, and at the time, she wasn’t upset with the teacher. Her son is autistic and has thrown fits before when he doesn’t get his way.

“I just left it alone, because I’ve never had a problem before with the school,” said Jeannie.

Jeannie asked the teacher if she wanted her to pick Brayden up and the teacher said no, they were just letting her know.

“He’s going to tell you we hurt him,” the teacher told Jeannie multiple times.

Jeannie said that she cannot lift her son as she was diagnosed with Leukemia in October, but when he came home she checked under his arms and noticed there was redness and a bruise there.

“I thought to myself, 'it could have been from playing with his brothers,'” Jeannie said. “I just let it go.”

However, that all changed when she got a knock on her door Sunday night.

A family member had come by to ask Jeannie if Brayden had gotten into trouble on Friday, and Jeannie said he had.

“They have been doing some not-too-nice things to your son,” the family member told her.

The family member had heard from a friend, who works for the school, that during an altercation with Brayden, his teacher had threatened to hit him back if he hit her and that he had been dragged by his backpack to be put on the bus when he was misbehaving in separate incidences.

“I guess she had shook him or grabbed him and told him, ‘The next time you hit me, I”m going to hit you back. And I’m going to hit you back harder. I’m bigger than you. You want to play this game? Sounds like a plan.’”

From an incident report, witness statements from staff members support this.

One staff member stated on an incident report:

“While we were packing up a student had hit the teacher’s arm. After the student had done this she said “If you hit me, I will hit you.” Then another, “I’m stronger and hit harder.” Then one more time, “Every time you hit me I will hit you, does that sound like a plan?” After that, the student didn’t want to walk to the bus so (the) teacher grabbed the top of his backpack and dragged (the) kid to (the) bus. She walked back to staff and said, “At least I was grabbing just the backpack.”

Other staff members and the teacher filled out incident reports regarding Brayden and the bus, which occurred on Thursday, but Jeannie stated she was not contacted about it.

In the reports, it was stated that Brayden did not want to get on the bus and staff members were trying to verbally convince him to get on when the teacher came up, grabbed onto his backpack and escorted him to the bus.

“I watched the video, and he wasn’t really dragged," said Jeannie. "It was definitely forceful and I mean, there’s other ways. They could have called me and I would have picked him up. But no one ever called me.”

The teacher and staff members also filed incident reports on having to restrain Brayden when he refused to come back into the classroom during which they placed their arms under his arms and “escorted” him back into the classroom. This was the only incident in which Jeannie was contacted.

Brayden has been diagnosed with autism and selective mutism, which makes communicating difficult for him.

“I thought everything was going great at school,” said Jeannie. “I’m upset because he tried to tell me that they hurt him, but instead I disciplined him because he hit his teacher. I said, “The teacher told me what you did,” and he couldn’t go anywhere on the weekend. I’ve been beating myself up since Sunday about it; I’m heartbroken.”

Jeannie told the school that she wasn’t trying to have the teacher arrested or brought up on criminal charges, but that she didn’t think the teacher should be allowed around special needs students.

Jeannie said that the Special Education Director for the district was involved in their meeting.

“I thought she was there to help me,” said Jeannie. “But that wasn’t the case. She told me that the teacher is going to get retrained on how to properly handle children with disabilities. I’m thinking, ‘Well, they should have been trained on this already.’”

Jeannie said that the district officials told her the teacher “Knows she shouldn’t use that language and she knows she was in the wrong to say that.”

As soon as Jeannie realized the teacher had admitted to speaking to her son like that but hadn't been disciplined, she became even more upset, because it felt like the district was condoning her behavior.

“She doesn’t need training,” said Jeannie. “She needs to be gone.”

Jeannie said she wanted to bring this incident to light because she couldn’t be sure how many other students the teacher had treated this way.

“I’m thinking, how many other children has she done these things to? I was told there have been kids who have had other issues with her, but they couldn’t really tell me anything more because they’re not my children. But if there are other children who have been mistreated, people need to know about it. It’s not right.”

Jeannie said that until the teacher has been removed from the school, Brayden will not be returning to school.

“I send my son to school to learn and get an education and, most importantly, to feel safe where he’s at,” said Jeannie. “That’s my main concern.”

The school district released the following statement regarding the incident:

"Employee disciplinary matters are confidential. However, district officials diligently follow-up on any allegation of such conduct involving an employee of the district, with student safety as a paramount priority. The district is committed to providing a working and learning environment that is free from unlawful harassment and takes all necessary steps to fully investigate such allegations and to impose all appropriate discipline attendant to such allegations if found to be true."