Burnet County school ‘delayed’ investigation, report after video shows employee push student
BERTRAM, Texas (KXAN) — A grand jury indicted an elementary school aide in Burnet County on a felony charge of injury to a child after a hallway surveillance video appeared to show her pushing an elementary school student.
District emails obtained by KXAN show the district’s investigation into the matter was delayed. The district made its state-mandated reports to Child Protective Services and the Texas Education Agency more than a month after the incident happened.
Caren Hasty, a former Burnet Consolidated Independent School District teacher’s aide, was seen on surveillance video dragging a 9-year-old student out of a Bertram Elementary classroom on Oct. 25.
After Hasty dragged the student out of the classroom, the video shows the student running back to the closed classroom door and trying to turn the door handle for over a minute. Then, the video shows Hasty push the student.
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Hasty’s attorney said she had been a teacher’s aide for a few months before the incident. According to her attorney, she worked as a substitute teacher for about a year and a half before taking the role.
“Regarding the alleged incident, Mrs. Hasty feels she has done everything that the school has asked and, with the little training that they have provided to her, she believes she has not violated any criminal law(s).”
The student’s father, Alan Whitehead, said his son made an outcry on the same day it happened. For weeks, Whitehead said, district officials told him they were uncertain whether video of the incident was captured by their surveillance cameras.
“I mean, it went on for weeks. ‘We don’t have it. We don’t think we can get it,” Whitehead said. “He made an outcry that somebody there, who is supposed to be trusted, hurt him. ‘We’re not sure’ is not really a good enough answer.”
More than a month later, district officials said they found and reviewed the video and determined that improper restraint occurred.
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In an emailed letter to Whitehead and his wife on Nov. 27, the Bertram Elementary school principal said she was “initially unsure of the availability of video footage” and “limited her investigation to the account of the incident provided by the staff member.”
“Due to the nature of the initial report from the parent and uncertainty about the status of video equipment near the incident, there was a delay between the report and the viewing of the video,” Burnet CISD Superintendent Keith McBurnett said in a statement to KXAN.
Additionally, McBurnett said the employee “did not utilize her training when she had to physically intervene with a non-compliant and disruptive student” and called her actions “inappropriate.”
Whitehead and his wife watched the video the next day on Nov. 28.
“I told them that’s not inappropriate contact. That’s assault,” Whitehead said.
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According to another email KXAN obtained, the Bertram principal said Hasty resigned on Nov. 17, right before the district’s Thanksgiving break. The superintendent told KXAN, “As soon as the video was viewed, the employee was removed from the campus and was not allowed to return to work.”
Texas law requires school districts to report certified educators to the State Board of Educator Certification within 7 business days when an educator resigns or is terminated following an incident of misconduct.
The Texas Education Agency said it received a report about the incident and Hasty’s involvement on Nov. 29.
In a statement to KXAN, the superintendent said the district reported the incident to CPS and TEA after seeing Whitehead’s law enforcement report. Whitehead said he filed a police report with the Bertram Police Department the day they watched the video on Nov. 28.
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“Although the actions of the former employee were inappropriate and did not follow the training provided by the district, none of the campus and district administrators who viewed the video determined the incident to require a report outside the district,” Superintendent Keith McBurnett said in a statement to KXAN.
Whitehead said he and his wife have yet to receive a written summary of the restraint used from the district. Under Texas law, school districts are required to provide written notice to parents when their student is restrained even when it is done properly. Districts also have to report instances where students are restrained to the TEA.
District officials did not answer whether it provided the report to the student’s parents.
“If we hadn’t got this video, it would have always been a he said, she said,” Whitehead said.
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