Teacher and aide captured on hidden audio abusing developmentally disabled child

posted at 3:29 pm on November 18, 2011 by Howard Portnoy

A schoolteacher has been suspended and her aide fired after a hidden audio device captured the two of them verbally abusing a 14-year-old developmentally disabled student.

The event occurred in the Miami Trace School District, about 30 miles southwest of Columbus, Ohio. The girl’s mother, Kourtney Barcus, agreed to a $300,000 settlement in a lawsuit naming the school district and its two employees.

Barcus and longtime boyfriend Brion Longberry, who helps raise the child, planted the bug on the girl based on long-held suspicions that she was being emotionally abused by her teacher, Christie Wilt, and Wilt’s aide, Kelly Chaffins. The recording confirmed the couple’s worst fears.

Among the verbal assaults amassed during the four days the child wore the recording device are the following:

Chaffins: Are you that damn dumb? Are you that dumb. Oh, my God. You are such a liar. … You told me you don’t know. It’s no wonder you don’t have friends. No wonder nobody likes you. Because you lie, cheat … steal…. You should be embarrassed. I just am in awe. Makes you worthless.

Wilt [talking to the girl about the results of a test before evaluating it]: You know what, just keep it. You failed it. I know it. I don’t need your test to grade. You failed it.

The couple said in court documents that they opted to clandestinely record interactions between the staff and their daughter after complaints made to school officials went unheeded over the course of several years.

In the recording, voices uniquely identified as those of Chaffins and Wilt can be heard questioning the girl’s weight, her level of physical activity, and making derogatory comments about her character and the character of her mother and the boyfriend.

One of the family’s attorneys, Daniel Mordarski, is on record as saying:

To say this stuff to any 14-year-old girl would be just awful. To say it to a girl that really doesn’t have the capacity to fend for herself or to speak up or to really fight back is—it’s just heartbreaking.

Dan Roberts, the district superintendent, acknowledged for the first time this week that a problem existed. He told the Washington Court House Record Herald, a local newspaper that broke the story:

The persons involved fell short of our mission. We’re sincerely sorry for that and we will work very hard to never let that happen again. We need to provide proper training and restate our expectations of how we treat children so that this never happens again.

To demonstrate the sincerity of Roberts’ words, the school board suspended Wilt’s license as an intervention specialist for one year, citing “conduct unbecoming to the teaching profession.”

That’s all well and good. But it may turn out to be a day late and a dollar short for the child, whose years of abuse may leave lasting emotional scars.

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