A Florida middle school teacher was canned after she reportedly hanged a black baby doll by its neck, shocking her rambunctious students in a horrifying bid “to get their attention.”
Karen Savage, an arts teacher at Barrington Middle School in Lithic was seen cinching a black wire around the doll’s neck during class on Monday — and then chucking it over a hanging flat-screen television.
Savage, 63, left the doll dangling in front of her shellshocked students.
One of her students, Noah Carter, recorded the tail-end of the jarring ordeal.
He told WTSP the teacher snatched the doll from a student and, when “nobody was paying attention,” hanged it from the television.
“Everybody started telling her it was wrong and racist to do that,” Carter, 14, said.
“And then she said it was just a joke, and then she took down the doll.”
The student claimed that Savage followed him when he tried to report her to the student affairs office, then talked over him as he recounted what happened.
“It was really disturbing,” Carter added.
“I hope that she’s not allowed to teach again. Because she shouldn’t be allowed to teach if she does things like that.”
His mother, Nina Williams, posted the now-viral video he captured on social media.
“Look at the photo. Look at the video. When the children called out this blatant, disgusting act of hate and asked why she hung that doll by its neck, she laughed it off. Her excuse to our kids was that she did it ‘to get their attention’,” Williams fumed on Facebook.
”This is NOT a classroom management tool. This is straight up hate and trauma being weaponized in front of our children in a place where they are supposed to be safe.”
Savage was initially removed from the classroom pending an internal probe, but the Hillsborough County Schools District confirmed she was fired Wednesday.
Williams told WTSP that she is considering taking legal action against the district.
