Florida elementary school principal Melissa Carter is being investigated by the Clewiston Police Department and the Department of Children and Families for allegedly beating a 6-year old student with a wooden paddle after notifying her mother she would be charged $50 for breaking a computer part.
The mother, who speaks Spanish and reportedly did not fully understand the letter she received, went to Central Elementary School to make the payment but instead was taken to the principal’s office where she learned she was to watch Carter and a staffer, who is also now under investigation, Cecilia Self, paddle the young girl, Law & Crime reports.
“The hatred with which she hit my daughter, I mean it was a hatred that, really I’ve never hit my daughter like she hit her,” the mother (who is not being named to protect her daughter,) crying, told WINK in Spanish. “I had never hit her.”
She says the principal was screaming, and she saw no cameras in the office so she secretly recorded the scene.
“Nobody would have believed me,” the mother said. “I sacrificed my daughter, so all parents can realize what’s happening in this school.”
She told WINK she feared if she had tried to stop the principal from beating her child she might “be in jail.”
Brent Probinsky, the family’s attorney, told WINK what took place is “aggravated battery” and called the principal “sadistic.”
“They’re using a weapon that can cause severe physical harm.”
Corporal punishment is allowed in some Florida school districts but not the one where this beating took place. According to WINK corporal punishment is specifically not allowed in the district.
Watch video (caution: disturbing and graphic) via WINK: