A school administrator in East Baton Rouge Parish has been charged after she allegedly forced a 6-year-old student to clean up her own feces. According to WAFB, Kristy Scott Gilpin on Monday turned herself in to authorities on a felony charge of cruelty to juveniles.
The January incident happened at Rollins Place Elementary, and the minor’s mother, Jamisha Augustine, said that her daughter was allergic to dairy. Augustine in a previous interview with the news outlet said that her daughter was in class when she eased on herself, but she was subsequently forced to clean the feces.
“I said what was the point of making her clean that up,” Augustine said about the discussion she had with the school administrator in the wake of the incident. “Do y’all have janitors? She said they do have janitors, but she needed a form of discipline. There are consequences behind the things that she does. I’m saying, how can you punish her for having an accident? I asked if she would make her daughter do that, and she said she would.”
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Augustine said that when her daughter started having accidents because of her dairy allergy, she recalled completing forms and handing over doctor’s notes as well as paperwork. She said her daughter became sick not too long after she had a breakfast that included milk.
“She asked her teacher to go to the restroom, but she said no because she went too many times,” Augustine said. “So, upon her going to the office after having an accident the principal told her she was too big to be having accidents on herself.”
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“Making her clean up feces, what was the point of that,” Augustine questioned. “That’s irresponsible. It’s hazardous and disgraceful, really pathetic.”
But after Gilpin was arrested and charged, her lawyer, John McLindon, told WAFB that her client was innocent, adding that the story being circulated by the student’s mother was inaccurate.
“This is not a child that was sick,” McLindon said. “This was a child that was engaging in bad behavior. It wasn’t a lot to clean up and she was given the proper wipes and she cleaned it up and that was the end of it.”
McLindon said that Gilpin’s arrest has left her “devastated.” “She’s a rockstar teacher. My phone has been ringing off the hook with support. 300 showed up in support for her last night,” the attorney claimed. “She’s devastated and upset about this.”
But Augustine’s attorneys refuted the allegations. “What I can say to those who think this is fabricated, do you think the Zachary Police Department after doing an extensive investigation is going to go as far as to get a felony warrant if this is based off of gross misrepresentations,” Attorney Ron Haley said.
“I can tell you that it’s not. This is done based on interviews, surveillance footage. This is not just taking a mother’s word or a child’s word for this and running amuck. That is not what happened here.”
McLindon said that though Gilpin was arrested and charged, she has not been placed on leave as the school system has reassigned her to another facility.
“If this was an adult working at a nursing home, and was arrested for cruelty to the infirm, would the best job be to go work at another nursing home,” Haley questioned. “If this was a person working at bank charged with bank fraud, is it appropriate to have that person moved from one branch to another branch? This is ridiculous.”
Gilpin was later released on Monday after she posted a $25,000 bond.
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