TOPEKA — The Kansas State Board of Education rejected conclusions of child abuse investigators, a professional practice commission and attorneys with the Department of Education to protect the teaching license of a mother accused of physically abusing her son.
The incident prompting regulatory intervention occurred in December 2022 at the Child Development Center on McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita. The center’s staff called the mother, who held a Kansas teaching license since 2020, to the school because her preschool-age son was throwing objects at a teacher. Educators testified the mother — unidentified because of redaction of state documents chronicling the case — watched video of the child’s conduct before declaring, “You’re going to learn how to act in the car.”
The boy, witnesses said, started to cry and repeatedly screamed that he didn’t want to go to the vehicle. The mother took him to and from the car three times that day, but during the second trip, Child Development Center teachers said, they observed the mother retrieve something that looked like a belt. School personnel said they saw the mother raising and lowering her arm inside the vehicle as if she was smacking the child. An assistant director of the Child Development Center said she saw the boy return to school rubbing his buttocks and thigh…