Carson City School District ex-employee alleges special education teacher slapped autistic child

Additional allegations of abuse at the hands of a special education teacher at Bordewich Bray have surfaced following the recent allegations a parent levied after she learned her autistic’s son’s teacher threatened to hit him.

According to an ex-employee of the Carson City school district, the same teacher slapped a child in the face in 2017. She and other staff members were asked to fill out incident reports, but somehow, those reports never made it to the district level, or to law enforcement as required by state law — the report did not even make it to the parents of the child who was hit.

At the end of March, the parent of a second grader found out from a family friend that her son, who is autistic and in special education, was threatened by his teacher.

Allegedly, the teacher stated, “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.”

Following the publishing of that report, a previous employee of the school district contacted Carson Now about an incident that occurred with the same teacher back in 2017.

In 2017 the teacher, who will be called "the teacher" in this report, was a paraprofessional in the special education classroom at Bordewich Bray, and would later earn her teaching degree to become an accredited teacher. The ex-employee, referred to as "the witness," asked to remain anonymous.

The witness stated that in 2017, the teacher slapped a 7-year-old autistic girl in the face.

“We were trying to get the kids on the bus before the rest of the school let out,” said the witness. “The student told (the teacher) 'no,' right in her face. She screamed it; she has autism. And then (the teacher) just slapped her in the mouth. I was in shock.”

She stated that the 7-year-old jumped back, shocked, and her mouth"fell to the floor."

“It took her a second to realize what had happened, and then she started crying,” said the witness.

The witness stated she had never seen the teacher act aggressively or abusively towards a child before that, and both she and the other staff members who witnessed it were stunned at what had occurred.

According to the witness, after the staff members finished getting the students on the bus, the teacher returned and tried to give up her key.

“She came back and said, ‘I’m just going to quit. I’m done. That’s it. They’re going to fire me, so I’m just going to quit. I should have never hit her.’ She said it several times,” said the witness.

The witness said that she and the other staff members told her to go and talk to the principal.

The members of the administration convinced her not to quit after she told them what she had done, according to the witness.

“They said, ‘These things happen. It was an impulse thing. It wasn’t like you were intentionally trying to hurt the child.’”

According to the witness, the principal, who retired a few months later that year, had each staff member involved write an incident report, including the teacher who struck the child.

“(The principal) said, ‘We just want everyone to write a statement on what happened. We’ll put it in her personnel file, but we won’t take it to the district office. It’ll just stay here with us as a verbal written warning, but it’s not going to go any further.”

However, no reports could be found by the school district when asked about the incident in April 2022.

The witness said that after the slap occurred, she was crying, because she had never seen anyone react like that to a child before.

“It was a huge shock in itself, and then knowing that the student wasn’t (the teacher’s) child — you don’t just get to slap the kid’s mouth just because you don’t like what they have to say. On my first day at the school, I had a student literally spit in my face. They have no control, especially in that age group, they’re still very much learning boundaries. And when autism is included in that, it’s even harder.”

The witness said that the school year of 2017 was especially difficult because during the first two weeks of school, the then full-time special education teacher, Sarah Anderson, was put on administrative leave after an allegation of abuse was levied against her. She did not return for the remainder of the school year, according to the witness, leaving only "the teacher" — who was a paraprofessional at the time — and the ex-employee in the classroom while several substitutes were rotated through during the first part of the school year.

In September 2016, a lawsuit was filed against Washoe County special education teacher Sarah Anderson and her principal, Nichole Traux for allegedly abusing her 5-year-old special needs child.

According to the suit, on Jan. 30, 2015, the 5-year-old was forced to spend the entire school day seated on the toilet without food and water. Anderson stated she was potty-training the girl.

It was later revealed in the police report that other incidents of alleged abuse had occurred in Anderson’s classroom during the previous school year, stating that Anderson had yelled at students and made rude and inappropriate comments.

After the lawsuit was filed in Washoe County District Court, Anderson, who was at the time working at Bordewich, was put on administrative leave, according to the witness.

“That year was ridiculous in itself, because we had no support from administration, we had no support from the school district staff that are supposed to help us. The only thing we did was a lot of CPI training, which was great.”

CPI stands for Crisis Prevention Institute, which is nonviolent crisis intervention training designed to manage difficult situations and disruptive behaviors in individuals who are at-risk, nonverbal or hostile.

“When I read the article (about the previous student’s report) and saw that she picked a student up underneath his arms and walked him into the classroom I thought, ‘That’s still against the student’s rights. They have their own autonomy.’ We are taught that heavily in CPI training. Seeing that in the article was like, you know better. You absolutely know better.”

The witness stated that when she inquired about a follow up to the incident regarding the teacher and the girl, she was told to drop it.

The witness stated that she continued working with the teacher for the rest of the school year, and she did not see any additional outbursts from the teacher towards any students.

However, she said that the student’s parents were never contacted, and that she did not believe the district was ever told of the incident.

When asked about the allegations, the Carson City School District stated that it could not locate any incident reports involving the teacher, either at the district level or the school level.

When asked why she believed the principal did not take it to the district, the witness said it was because the principal was already planning to retire.

“I really think it’s got everything to do with the fact that she was retiring, and with all the stress she had going on with not having a teacher in there….I think she wanted nothing more to do with it,” said the witness. “Carson is so short staffed on teachers that I think they just gave up.”

All educational staff members are, by law, mandated reports. Under NRS 432B.220, an individual who violates their capacity as a mandated reporter can face a misdemeanor criminal charge.

This is a developing story.