Wyoming Teacher Charged in Connection to 5th Grade Boy’s Suicide in School Bathroom

A Wyoming teacher has pleaded “not guilty” to charges related to a 5th-grade student’s suicide.

Carpenter Elementary music teacher Amelia Giordano was arraigned on Thursday for a misdemeanor charge of “abandoning or endangering a child.”

The student, Paul Pine, had reportedly been struggling with his mental health last school year, and his difficulty reading was causing him to be singled out by teachers, according to his mother, Chandel Pine.

In the fall, Pine told his mother that he was having thoughts of suicide. More specifically, the child was thinking about hanging himself in the boys’ bathroom at the school.

“After that, Chandel Pine contacted school officials and made arrangements for an individualized education program to try and keep him safe at school,” The Blaze reports. “The principal also instructed teachers and staff not to permit students to use the restroom unaccompanied.”

In December, the student was picked up by his father after he told a teacher that he had brought a knife to school and was having “some scary thoughts.”

Pine was kept out of school for over a week, and officials considered expelling him, but he was allowed to return just before Christmas break.

“I emailed the attorney for the school district, and I spoke to the principal many times. I spoke to the superintendent many times,” Chandel Pine said, according to The Blaze report. “Eventually, I spoke in front of the Board of Trustees, begging them to not punish my child for asking for help.”

After the break, on January 9, the 5th grader was in Giordano’s music class when he asked to use the restroom. She gave him permission and allowed him to go unaccompanied.

“Paul was then gone 17 minutes, during which time Giordano and another adult peeked in the open door of the boys’ bathroom several times, according to reports of school surveillance footage,” the report states. “The principal then entered the bathroom, saw Paul hanging on a coat rack in a bathroom stall, clearly in medical distress, and immediately attempted CPR.”

The student was revived and flown to a hospital but died there three days later. He was just 11 years old.

“We had followed all the safety plans. We’d put our knives, like steak knives, out of the kitchen, all in a safe. I took away all of his charging cords, all of his belts, his flat sheets, everything. Everything that was in the safety plan, I followed to a T to make sure he was safe,” Chandel Pine said. “… We expected the school to follow the safety plan.”

The teacher faces a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $1,000 fine. She is scheduled to appear in court again in November.

 

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