

Chris Fox, CP24.com





A police investigation is underway after a lunchroom supervisor at a west-end school allegedly told a five-year-old girl to go inside a storage room as a form of discipline.

In a statement provided to CP24, the Toronto District School Board said that the administration at Essex Jr. and Sr. Public School became aware of the incident on March 28 after it was reported to them by students.

They say that the incident is believed to have occurred about two weeks prior to administration officials first becoming aware of it.

The storage room measured about 3.5 metres by two metres and was left unlocked, according to the TDSB.

“It was reported that a 5-year old student was told by a lunchroom supervisor to stay inside an unlocked storage room off of a classroom as a form of discipline,” the statement from the TDSB reads. “While we continue to investigate, the reported incident is very troubling and something that would be completely unacceptable.”

Police investigating incident as possible assault

The TDSB says that it immediately began an investigation into the incident upon learning about it and notified Toronto Police as per their policy.

A spokesperson for the Toronto Police Service tells CP24 that they do have an assault report on file and assigned the case to an investigator on Tuesday night. They say that investigator has not yet had an opportunity to interview the victim and witnesses to the alleged incident, however.

Speaking with CP24 on Wednesday, the mother of the five-year-old girl involved said that her daughter wanted to have her pizza lunch heated up and was trying to get the lunchroom supervisor’s attention.

She said that her daughter “kicked a table” upon being ignored by the supervisor. At that point, she said that the supervisor warned her not to kick the table again or she would be “put in a closet.” When she did kick the table again, the woman said that her daughter was led into the storage closet where she was told to remain for the rest of the lunch hour.

“Even if my daughter was misbehaving they have the option to take her to the office, they have the option to call me as the parent, but to take her as an adult and lock her in the closet, that’s wrong,” Le’Anna Felix said. “Anything could have happened. How did you do that? It is not OK to take a child and lock a child in the closet.”

Mother reluctant to take daughter back to school

Felix said that she only learned of the incident after receiving a call from a vice-principal at the school on Monday.

She said that she then notified police herself after speaking with her daughter, who she said was initially reluctant to share details about the incident for fear she would be upset.

“I said ‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you say anything to me’ and she said ‘Mommy, I thought you would be upset,’” Felix said. “Because of this now she is afraid to go to school, she thinks it’s going to happen again and later on I don’t know how it is going to affect her.”

Felix said that she has been holding her daughter out of classes since Thursday and isn’t sure when she will take her back to the school.

She said that she also has two other children at the same school and is now concerned about their wellbeing as well.

“It bothers me as a parent. You trust these teachers with your children and think your children are getting properly cared for and they are not,” she said. “It goes to show for every parent out there that you have to be on your P’s and Q’s when it comes to your children. Investigate the school, do surprise visits and drop-ins to make sure your children are being cared for in the right way.”

The TDSB says that the lunchroom supervisor has been put on home assignment pending the outcome of an investigation.