A Milwaukee teacher is charged with disorderlyconduct after punishing
a first-grader by cutting her hair.
Lamya Cammon is angry, confused, and scared by the incident last
week in which the apparently frustrated teacher cut one of her braids
off after she wouldn't stop playing with them in class.
Cammon, 7, sports a few dozen braids, but one is conspicuously
absent. "She told me to stop playing with it. Then she cut it off and
sent me back to my desk," Cammon said.
Cammon's a first-grader at Congress Elementary and said her teacher
used a pair of classroom scissors to cut off one of the braids after
she absent-mindedly kept playing with them.
She said the teacher called her to the front of the room and cut it in
front of the whole class. "What did you do?" Bohr asked.
"I went to my desk and cried. And they was laughing," Cammon said.
"She threw it away, and she said, 'Now what you gonna go home
and say to your momma? ' And I said, 'That you cut off my hair,'"
Cammon said.
Cammon's mother is furious. She went to the school and confronted
the teacher. "I said, 'Well, you know, you cut a lot of her hair off.'
And she was like, 'Well, I do apologize.' She said, 'But I was
frustrated,'" Cammon's mother, Helen Cunningham, said.
The Milwaukee Public Schools District said it is going through the
disciplinary process with the teacher, although Cammon has been
moved to a different classroom by the principal.
Milwaukee police investigated the case and referred it to the
district attorney for possible physical or mental abuse of a child
charges.
When the district attorney's office decided not to file criminal
charges, police this week issued the teacher a $175 ticket for
disorderly conduct.
12 News called the teacher Friday night and went to her home for
comment, but someone came to the door and said she didn't want
to talk.
