ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – We put a lot of trust in our schools. Most of us don’t know exactly what goes on inside our child’s classroom.

A new lawsuit is exposing allegations of abuse inside an Albuquerque Public Schools’ middle school at the hands of a longtime teacher.

In 2022, in the middle of an internal investigation, after more than two decades at APS, a Hayes Middle School special needs teacher quietly retired as her colleagues spoke up.

It was only after a field trip to the Old Town Plaza, and a postal worker who witnessed what she considered to be a crime, that APS seriously investigated a teacher’s troubling behavior around the district’s most vulnerable students.

The postal worker witnessed a teacher yelling at a little girl who had Down syndrome. The teacher grabbed a hat and forcefully put it on the child’s head.

The incident prompted an APS police investigation, and the teacher was reported to the New Mexico Public Education Department for a complaint on her license.

During those investigations, both PED and APS discovered a trend of troubling allegations that went far beyond the Old Town incident.

Now, a new lawsuit against Albuquerque Public Schools alleges that same teacher repeatedly abused a 12-year-old special needs student in her class. We’re not naming her because she hasn’t been charged with a crime.

Among other things, the lawsuit alleges the teacher cursed at the child, hit them with a ruler, and violently kneed them in the back.

Educational assistants and fellow teachers told investigators the teacher routinely took kids behind a divider in her class to knee them in the tailbone so it wouldn’t leave a bruise. One educational assistant told investigators the teacher told her to do it.

She allegedly did that when students wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t sit down, or accidentally broke things in class.

The teacher admitted to doing it to APS police, calling it a “technique” and “discipline in a loving way.”

Although, when investigators asked if she would want to be kneed in the tailbone, she told them she would not.

Time and again, staff told police they reported the teacher for those improper interactions but that they believe it was never investigated by school staff, according to an APS internal investigation.

In the years leading up to the 2022 investigation, educational assistants said the same teacher brought a taser to her special needs class. She fired it off several times, scaring the other teachers, according to an internal APS investigation.

Other teachers told investigators they’ve seen her backhand a non-verbal student, or a student who might not be able to speak up for themselves.

Time and again, internal affairs documents show educational assistants asked to be removed from her class.

KOB 4 wanted to know why those many reports seemingly went unanswered – after all this teacher had unlimited access to students for years – but a spokesperson for APS refused to comment. You may be thinking, surely, there’s oversight, but not exactly.

“Right now professional development is a requirement of each district,” said Michelle Tregembo. “They decide what needs to be done. They decide what their teachers know and don’t know.”

Michelle Tregembo is New Mexico’s Special Education Ombud. It’s an independent office where she acts as expert and advocate working to identify gaps in safe, equitable education. 

She, and a team of others, helps support special needs students and their families.

Right now, the office is focused on gathering data, training, and what’s called restraint and seclusion – laws that allow schools to physically engage students when necessary.

“These terms aren’t accurately defined so we don’t know when it’s OK, when it’s not OK, when it’s appropriate, when it’s not appropriate. So we really need those laws on the books,” said Alice Liu McCoy, executive director of Developmental Disabilities.

In 2022 and 2023, 4 Investigates found Albuquerque Public Schools reported more than 750 restraints and seclusions with almost 90% of those involving special needs students.

“Honestly, identifying whether an incident even happened, varies from school to school,” said Liu McCoy.

It’s up to school staff to self-report. Take Hayes Middle School, where our problem teacher worked. It reported zero restraints and seclusions even though during that same reporting period prosecutors charged a teacher’s aide with a crime for “restraining” a child.

“There is a lot of work to do but at the same time, it’s started,” said Tregembo.

APS won’t talk about this issue. We wanted to ask about those 700 incidents. Were parents contacted? Were they investigated?

The teacher retired, but the state revoked her license anyway. She also declined to sit down with us but did tell us she now works with the elderly at a senior living facility.