A Pennsylvania mom claims in a federal lawsuit that a trio of teachers accidentally left a vile and degrading voicemail about her disabled daughter, according…
A Pennsylvania mom claims in a federal lawsuit that a trio of teachers accidentally left a vile and degrading voicemail about her disabled daughter, according to a report.
Beth Suhon claims that in 2015, her daughter’s fifth-grade teacher left a message on her machine, but forgot to hang up, recording himself and two other educators mocking the girl and another disabled student.
“It was very difficult for me to tell my child, who has been bullied by her peers for years, that she was now being bullied by her teachers,” the mom told ABC13.
Suhon filed a federal lawsuit last week against the McGuffet School District for allegedly discriminating against her daughter, now in eighth grade, who has Turner syndrome, a chromosomal condition in women that causes developmental problems and learning disabilities, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
In a recording of the voicemail, released by Pittsburgh’s Action News 4, teachers can be heard saying “her teeth are crooked.”
They also suggest the young girl has “no strengths” and one educator said that “she could coal-mine. She could be a good coal miner.”
Michael McElligot, a special-education hearing officer who wrote a report on the incident, called the comments “nearly unfathomable, and frankly heartbreaking.”
“The educators mock the students’ mathematics ability, physical appearance, and classroom behavior, punctuating these crass comments with derisive laughter,” he wrote.
Attorney Noah Geary said in the complaint that the teachers said “insulting, horrible things” about the students on the recording but that the district did nothing about it.
Suhon pulled her daughter from class and enrolled her in online classes, but then “reluctantly” returned her to the district for sixth grade.
The mom also is suing the district for canceling a special-needs education plan for her daughter in 2013 without telling her, resulting in what she claims are years of delays in the girl’s education.
The school district has yet to respond, local outlets reported.
