PED, RRPS investigate RRMS teacher; parent worried for son

RIO RANCHO — The New Mexico Public Education Department confirmed last month that it is investigating a former Rio Rancho Middle School teacher.

The teacher, who has not been publicly identified at this time, allegedly had an inappropriate image up on the smart board during class Nov. 14. However, NMPED says the investigation will take time.

“Currently, the NM Public Education Department (PED) has opened an investigation based on a complaint received on November 14, 2024. Since the matter has been opened for an investigation, an administrative investigator has been assigned,” the PED said in a statement. “Once the investigation is complete, a report is submitted to the Administrative Prosecutions team, who will review the results of each investigation and submit its results to the Director of Licensure Bureau, which determines whether the results warrant initiating disciplinary action against the educator’s license or application for licensure. If the results of the investigation do not call for disciplinary action, the case will be closed. If disciplinary action is called for, it will be initiated.”

Rio Rancho Public Schools confirmed that the teacher no longer works in the district.

“The individual referenced in your inquiry is no longer an employee of Rio Rancho Public Schools. While the district was conducting its investigation, the employee resigned. The district will continue to look into these allegations and work with the New Mexico Public Education Department and law enforcement agencies. As this is an open investigation into a personnel matter, we are not at liberty to discuss specific details,” RRPS said via an email statement.

The district said it takes these matters seriously.

“Student safety, both physical and mental, is a top priority for the district. Actions like those included in the allegations have no place within our schools and are completely unacceptable. We will work tirelessly to ensure that all appropriate actions are taken to resolve this issue,” RRPS added.

At this time, New Mexico Courts do not show any record of charges filed from the incident.

A parent of a RRMS student is feeling sickened and frustrated after the teacher allegedly displayed the inappropriate video on the smart board in her eighth-grade son’s class.

Amy Diaz wants action because her son’s school life is changed by the incident, she said. Before she learned of the incident from her son, she received an email from the school about the incident that she described as “concerning but vague.”

“Good afternoon RRMS community, This email is to inform you of an incident that took place earlier today in one of our 8th grade classrooms. During class, school administration received reports of an inappropriate image being displayed on a smart board. We are in the process of investigating the incident. Once this investigation process is complete, we will take appropriate action,” the Nov. 8 email to parents stated.

The school also wrote that it understands the concern around the incident and thanked students for coming forward.

When Diaz got that email, she wasn’t sure if her son was in the class during the incident and asked him about it.

After telling his mom about it, he described the incident in a written statement for the investigation.

“My back was to the board and I heard a bunch of kids laughing, so I turned around to see what they were laughing at. On the smart board was a lady taking off her shirt with no bra and a camera set up on her,” he wrote.

“It was on Media Player, so it was really weird. Nobody uses Media Player. It wasn’t like YouTube,” he wrote.

Diaz’s son said the teacher’s use of Media Player indicated the video had to have been downloaded and was not just an accidental click of a link.

“I turned back around because I hated it and didn’t want to see it. The teacher didn’t even notice,” he said. Diaz also said because of his autism, her son remembers everything he sees. When they did notice, the student said, he accidentally started the video over and then disconnected it.

Before the teacher noticed, two girls went to the bathroom and returned with the principal and vice principal, according to his report. The laptop, smartboard and teacher were taken out of the room.

Diaz says she is very worried about her son and is concerned that she had to hear the story from him and not the school.

“The vice principal stays in the classroom and just tells them get back to work. It’s like the last 10-15 minutes of class. Then doesn’t mention anything, says nothing, just asks about their dismissal process? And they go on into a three-day weekend. So there was no attempt to understand what the students were feeling,” Diaz said.

After the weekend, she called the school to find out what was going on.

“There was no follow-up; we had no idea, and my son did not want to be in the classroom with him,” she said. “And then of course, he wasn’t on campus, but there was just no follow-up. There was no communication; it was not transparent. Also, a video is quite different than an image.”

When Diaz did finally get a councilor from the school to talk to her, it was made clear that the teacher wasn’t on campus while the investigation was under way. Each student in the class was talked to individually about the incident. Diaz’s concern was that the kids weren’t talked to until the week after the incident.

“Three days after the fact, like the kids didn’t have a whole weekend to add details because that’s what kids do. And so when my son came home, I wrote everything down right away, everything he told me. I sent that to the administration, and then they called back saying there is an investigation,” Diaz said.

She was also “unsettled” that he quit during the investigation.

“This guy did this thing with these kids. Is there something preventing him from doing it somewhere else?” Diaz said.

However, the most concerning part of the whole ordeal for her is her son’s well-being in school.

“He is sensitive to that stuff,” she said. “I started getting reports from teachers that he was way more distracted than he’d ever been, and it wasn’t like he’s acting out, malicious or violent. None of that. He’s just lost some interest.”

She added that his trust in teachers is probably dwindled, as has hers.

“You’re forced to trust them, like you really don’t have much of a choice. It’s not like you earn the trust and then have a relationship. I’m trusting you implicitly because that’s your job, and my job as a parent is to be in tune with my child to make sure everything’s cool, but this was so far beyond,” Diaz said.