5 Amarillo ISD Employees are on Leave After Disturbing Facebook Post
Five Amarillo ISD employees have been placed on leave after accusations of their conversations about one of the students surfaced in a Facebook group.
A mother of one of the students said her son was the topic of the conversation. Angela Hartfelder took screenshots of the public post after she noticed the topic of the conversation seemed to match that of her 10-year-old son.
The teachers were at Joe Taco talking loud and laughing which caught the attention of Jason Goodlife, who recorded and posted the video, which since has been deleted. He approached Amarillo ISD about the allegations.
Hartfelder's son has Dyslexia, ADHS, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and two types of dysgraphia (a writing disability).
Hartfelder talked with the Globe-News saying, "Initially, I started to bypass it [the Facebook post], and then I saw the pictures and I recognized every one of them because those were all my son's teachers," Hartfelder said. "As I was reading the post, my heart just sank with every line."
The Facebook post was posted by Jason Goodlife, you can see and read in the post he was not trying to eavesdrop because the conversation they were having was loud enough for him to hear them.
One of the women talking at the restaurant was predicting what would happen if the boy "went on a killing spree in 20 years." The women said they would be blamed for not doing their job.
They also exchanged conversation about the boy's mother from the text messages the teachers received from Hartfelder. The women laughed and critized Hartfelder's care for her child.
The five educators were put on leave while the story is under investigation. The Amarillo ISD released a statement to address the issue:
"Upon learning of the social media postings last week, AISD began an internal investigation into the allegations. Our district has clear expectations of professionalism from our staff. We hold our employees to the highest standards for confidentially of student information and appreciate our parents who partner with us in the education of their students. Because this matter concerns students and district personnel, we cannot release further information."