VIDEO Special needs 14-year-old taunted by teachers

In yet another “what is freaking wrong with people” from the world of bullying, we have 14-year-old student Cheyanne who was verbally teased and insulted by the teachers entrusted with her care. She attended Miami Trace Middle School in Washington Court House, Ohio.

Cheyanne and her father appeared with Ann Curry on Today this morning to speak out about the situation. Her parents had complained on numerous occasions about Cheyanne’s teacher, Christy Wilt, and teacher’s aide, Kelly Chaffins, but received no help. They eventually had to secretly tape the occurrences in order to have the school board finally do something about the circumstance.

Here is the video report and interview filed by Today:

During the audio recordings you can hear Chaffins ask Cheyenne, “Don’t you want to do something about that belly?” To which the young girl answers, “Yes.” Chaffins then states:

“Well, evidently you don’t because you don’t do anything at home. You sit at home and watch TV.”

In one exchange Chaffins further told Cheyanne that:

“It’s no wonder that you don’t have friends. No wonder nobody likes you because you lie, cheat…”

As for her teacher Wilt, she at one point crumples up a test and informs Cheyanne that she’s failed even before she looks at it. Cheyanne later gets a question wrong and is told to run on a treadmill. 15 minutes later she is accused of breaking it.

Christy Wilt and Kelly Chaffins accused of bullying a special needs student
Christy Wilt / Kelly Chaffins

After bringing these secret recordings to the school board, officials demanded that Chaffins resign. Chaffins announced her resignation while Wilt has been put on unpaid leave and ordered to undergo eight hours of training on how to stop child abuse. For the parents of Cheyanne, this and $300,000 in damages from a lawsuit they received just isn’t enough. One of their attorneys said:

“There’s no good solution, but we don’t think that this teacher and this aide should be working with students, especially special needs students. We would like her (Wilt) to be terminated.”



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