Special needs student bullied by teachers

UNDATED -- A special needs student in Ohio was a victim of repeated bullying by her teachers and the family captured it all on tape.

Some days Cheyanne, 14, would tell her parents that she didn’t feel like going to school, but when her complaints became more frequent her family realized something wasn’t right.

Cheyanne, a special needs middle school student in Ohio, was bullied by her teacher, Christie Wilt, and classroom aide, Kelley Chaffins, according to her family.

Cheyanne’s family brought her complaints to the school, but they were told that the student was lying. It wasn’t until Cheyanne went to school with a hidden tape recorder that the family learned how bad the situation was.

The recording went as follows:

Chaffins: “Cheyanne, are you kidding me? Are you that damn dumb? You are that dumb? Oh my God. You are such a liar.”

Cheyanne: “I’m not lying.”

Chaffins: “You told me you don’t know. It’s no wonder you don’t have friends. No wonder nobody likes you because you lie, cheat…”

Cheyanne: “I don’t lie.”

When Cheyanne brought the recording home her father was disturbed.

“We’re listening to seven hours worth of stuff on this tape,” said Brian, Cheyanne’s father. “So we were up all night crying, upset, because we didn’t understand why. We didn’t understand why, why would they do this?”

The tapes recorded four days of verbal abuse by Wilt and Chaffins. In another recording, Cheyanne was told by her teacher that she failed a test -- before the teacher looked at it.

Cheyanne and her father appeared on the Today Show Tuesday. Cheyanne used one word to describe how she feels, “Sad.”

“She was doing things that -- starting to harm herself to keep from going to school. So we knew we had to do something at that point. We weren’t getting anywhere with the school,” said Brian.

Chaffins was asked to resign and Wilt was put on unpaid leave until at least the end of the school year.

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