Two years after a Quitman Street Community School elementary school teacher - Lydia Wilson - was suspended after students reported participating or witnessing what they called the “Nasty Game,” the “Nasty Club” or the “Kissing Game" has won back her job after an arbitrator ruled that school officials botched an investigation.
According to six students - ages 6 and 7 - claimed they had played a game were they exposed their genitals to each other to get into the “club" allegedly played during lunch and under the tables of their classroom while their teacher was present.
The game allegedly proceeded once the students touched each other’s genitals with their hands and mouths.
A substitute teacher reported the situation to school administrators,
after the students shared about the alleged game during a “circle time” discussion. Administrators contacted the school social worker and the state Office of Institutional Abuse.
With the students allegations, district officials believed that the students claims was suffice evidence to terminate the teacher, who should have paid closer attention to her students.
However during an arbitration in February, arbitrator Timothy J. Brown claimed that since the students did not testify at the hearing, instead they were exposed to interviews which reportedly consisted of questions that were not non-suggestive and non-leading, possibly interfering with the children’s supposed recollections about what happened.
The arbitrator nonetheless ordered the teacher back to her position with full back pay and an expungement of the suspension from her record.