Middle school teacher is suspended without pay after she ‘squirted hand sanitizer into the mouth of a student who would not stop talking’
- Guyette Duhart has been suspended for 10 days without pay over the incident, which is alleged to have occurred at Polo Park Middle School last October
- Six students say Duhart took a bottle of Up and Up hand sanitizer from her desk before squirting it into the male student’s mouth
- Duhart denies the allegations, claiming the boy put the cleaning agent into his own mouth
A Florida teacher has been suspended for 10 days without pay after she allegedly squirted hand sanitizer into the mouth of a student who was ‘talking too much’.
Guyette Duhart was suspended Wednesday over the incident, purported to have occurred at Polo Park Middle School on October 14 of last year.
Duhart denies carrying out the act and has appealed the decision. She has been placed on an alternative assignment.
Teacher Guyette Duhart was suspended Wednesday over the incident, purported to have occurred at Polo Park Middle School (pictured) on October 14 of last year
Six students told school district officials that, on the day of the alleged incident, Duhart warned the boy that if he did not stop talking she would ‘wash his mouth out with soap’.
She is then reported to have ordered him to the front of the classroom and grabbed a bottle of Up and Up hand sanitizer off of her desk.
She then pumped the cleaning agent directly into the boy’s mouth, the six eyewitnesses told investigators.
He subsequently spit the liquid onto the floor and left the classroom.
Duhart, however, offers a different version of events.
She says that, while she did put the bottle of sanitizer near the student’s face, he voluntarily pumped it into his own mouth.
Duhart is reported to have ordered the student to the front of the classroom and grabbed a bottle of Up and Up hand sanitizer that was sitting on her desk
‘I was really unaware that anything occurred until he left,’ she stated, according to the investigation report, obtained by the Palm Beach Post.
‘He returned to the class and I allowed him to wash out his mouth’.
The complaint is the first that has been filed against Duhart in her 12-year teaching career.
Polo Park Middle School hit headlines back in 2015, when a female student was stabbed by an eighth-grade boy, sparking a schoolwide lock down.
The victim sustained minor injuries and recovered.