Teacher accused forgetting 5-year-old in locked room

[Hum]

CALDWELL, Idaho ? A kindergarten teacher locked a 5-year-old boy in a small, dark room alone at the end of a school day then forgot the child there for over an hour, according to a southwestern Idaho father.

School officials said Friday they were investigating after hearing from James Cagle, who says that when his wife found their son the boy was crying and had urinated on himself.

Cagle said he and his wife panicked when their son didn't come home from his morning kindergarten class Wednesday. About 45 minutes after he was supposed to be home, they headed to Washington Elementary School to look for him.

Cagle said his wife and a school secretary found the boy crying and afraid in the small room in the dark, where he had apparently been for around an hour and a half after the teacher put him there for misbehaving.

"I know that if I locked my child in a room long enough for him to urinate on himself, I'd be going to jail or child protective services would dang sure be here taking him out of my house that night," Cagle said.

School officials dispute that the room was locked, saying the teacher would not have had a key. Assistant District Superintendent Monica White also noted that the door to the room has a large window, which allows light in from the hallway.

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[Davo]

Their excuse is that the room wasn't really locked and that the windows let light in? :/

How does someone just leave a kid in an otherwise empty room and leave? Firing her would not be an overreaction.

[sagum]

I had a math teacher that used to lock misbehaving kids into her store room too. I say store room as she kept the class books and stuff in there, but it was more like the department's utility room. Never really thought any thing off it at the time, but I guess it could have ended bad for the kids too.

Usually what would happen is a kid would kick off in the class, and be locked in there until they calmed down.

We'd see the store room light flashing off and on like crazy and we'd all laugh at it before getting back on with our work.

The kid in the store room would usually turn of the networking, I think we were still using token ring back then! so they could have simply just uncoupled a machine or something.

The next time we came to use the computer's they just wouldn't work on the network. The teachers didn't know how to fix it, and because the IT staff would spend most all day trying to fix and our lesson was only 2 hours, we often we simply forwent the use of them.

The same kids usually messed with the department's heating too, teachers would not notice until radiators were burning hot and because they were the old cast iron ones they'd take forever to cool down. If you were unlucky enough to have to sit next to them you'd be dripping buckets by the end of the day.

Not only that but they'd normally come away with several books stuffed down their pants after being locked in the store room too.

It was not really a punishment for them, more like extra way to have fun for being idiots. It's a shame they didn't get locked like the OP post.

I agree they shouldn't have been left there for that long, but the school needs another way to discipline kids. School was stupid with its rules back when I was in school some 20 years ago now, I can only imagine that how teacher's have to cope now. No excuse for letting the kid pee themselves though :(

[Hum]

Other than sending kids home, teachers should not be allowed to physically punish anyone.

[Shane Nokes]

I had a teacher that pulled stuff like this. Except it was a small storage closet in the classroom without lights. I had childhood epilepsy so whenever a 'movie day' happened she would put me in there...and there was no way out as it was locked.

She forgot one day...and my mom came to the school since I didn't make it home on the bus. The teacher remembered and let me out. My mom was livid. Last I knew (around 2000) that teacher was still there...14 years later.

[Growled Member]

This teacher should be fired at a minimum. What she did was grossly inappropriate.