SWFL mother says teacher’s aide told daughter ‘go back to Haiti’

A mother is enraged after she says a teacher’s aide at Lexington Middle School in south Fort Myers made a discriminatory comment toward her daughter and another student.

Shaundoria Daniels considers what a teacher’s aide said to her daughter and another female student an act of bullying and has demanded an apology.

“My baby does not go to school to get bullied by a teacher,” Daniels said.

Daniels’ daughter is in 8th grade at Lexington. She told her mother, “She told us that we need to go back to Haiti because we decided to sit down after the Pledge of Allegiance.”

“Instead of her bringing them down, she should have been speaking with them, asking them like, ‘Hey, why are you sitting?’ You know, ‘What are you sitting for?’ Explaining to them what’s the purpose of standing,” Daniels said.

Neither of the girls were born in Haiti, and Daniels said her daughter feels both embarrassed and hurt.

“She made them feel some type of way about who they are,” Daniels said. “Telling them to go back to Haiti. Like, you don’t even know these kids. You don’t even know where they are from obviously.”

Daniels said the teacher’s aide was removed from her daughter’s class last Friday. And School District of Lee County said the teacher’s aide was removed from the classroom during an investigation.

“How do you expect these kids to look at you now and respect you due to the fact of what you said?” Daniels said.