Fiancee here. Please read this because I feel like it's important. I know kids aren't angels and I also know that most teachers are normal, well-rounded professionals. But from my experience in the traditional program specifically, there seemed to be a lack of accountability and issues with letting teachers of tenure get away with shit that no one in a position of power should be getting away with.
In elementary school most of my teachers were totally cool with the exception of one who in general had a bad attitude and would make fun of children for making mistakes and encourage the rest of the class to join in so the kid wouldn't make the mistake again. She never picked on me but one of the students that had issues with her told his parents and when the parents got involved, the kid was simply moved to another class and nothing else was ever done. She retired soon after I left.
Middle school, again, was pretty much fine for me teacher-wise. I was sick regularly and my parents took proper action in letting the school system and my school know. JCPS got back to us and told us what we needed to do and worked with us closely. What we needed to do was contact the office faculty (counselors, etc) at my school and then they would help make arrangements for me for make up work and make up tests. What did we hear back from the school? Jack shit. They literally did not get back to us ever. Not once. So my parents, thinking that maybe we had to consult the teachers, consulted my teachers.
All of them were fine with the exception of one. Instead of accepting my sick notes she would question them left and right, demanding my parents bring in more 'information' before she would let me make my work up. They were notes from a hospital and she still wouldn't take them. She demanded to call my mother in the middle of the work day - to make sure that I wasn't lying. I was 11 years old. Then, after I don't do well in her class, she sends me to see a counselor and has my parents called because I 'clearly had ADHD' and needed to be in a special class. I don't have ADHD. I've never had ADHD. I don't recall ever misbehaving in her class. I don't even recall ever approaching her with the exception for when I had to turn in my doctors notes.
Eventually I figured out why she tried her hardest to get me removed from her class - because my absences required me to come in before or after class to make up tests and she wasn't willing to stick around. I didn't miss school that often, tbh. And I only ever missed one test. So it really wouldn't have been putting her out that much, right?
The next year I had a teacher who openly humiliated me in class by pointing out all the flaws of my classwork and segregated me from the other students. As in she purposefully sat me 2 rows away from everyone else because my work wasn't good enough. Eventually she sat other unfavorable kids there too. I wasn't a bad kid. I never started anything. I never had behavior problems. Again, it was my valid and involuntary absentee status that irked her.
I had to make up a test that I missed in her class. The note was already turned and long story short, she refused to let me take it. If I missed the test, I would fail the class. My mother called her and she still wouldn't let me. So finally, after two years of being at this school, my mother visited the office and demanded that something be done. The offices decision was that 'teachers can run classrooms however they please'.
We went to the school board and they corrected the issue. I had a valid absence that I knew about ahead of time and she wouldn't let me make up the test and risked me failing her class.
She also was verbally abusive to other kids in the class. She would call them stupid and tell them that they won't amount to anything in life. I mean now a days I wouldn't give a shit if someone told me that, but when I was a kid it was a big deal. When I was being bullied in the middle of class by other students and she saw the entire ordeal, she didn't say a word. She just looked at me.
I went to everyone I possibly could about the physical and verbal bullying I experienced and no one did anything. No teacher, student, or counselor did anything. I was told to get over it. I was told that maybe I should make myself less of a target. My friend, who happened to be the only Indian in the school, was harassed and had racist shit carved into her locker. The faculty apologized and then proceeded to ignore her requests for a new locker for the rest of the school year. I was tackled in the hallway in front of teachers and was, for lack of a better word, humped by a larger student as a joke. I sought help. Nothing happened. No one said anything.
It was fucking deplorable. That school was and always will be a mess because guess what: The same people are teaching there and working there 10 years after I left! They haven't left or been reassigned.
Luckily the rest of my school career was rather uneventful - oh no wait! I forgot about the principal at my (first) dear old high school who got busted being drunk at public events, passing around footage of two underage kids having sex in the cafeteria and making severely racist remarks about students.
Then, at my last high school, I was physically assaulted by another student that never got disciplined for it because she may or may not have been related to a faculty member. Also, fun fact about that school, fights reached such a fever pitch that the fucking police had to be on watch there all day everyday for months.
So yeah, maybe this is why boogeyman stories exist because - y'know - bad things happen and shouldn't be dismissed because kids are kids.
The woman in question didn't harm the kid - I agree with that and people need to stop calling for a witch-hunt - but they still need to be scrutinized. JCPS and more importantly individual schools need to be scrutinized.