Trouble For Illinois Preschool After Naked Punishments

Preschool children were allegedly forced to strip naked and stand in a closet for five or 10 minutes as punishment last week in East St. Louis.

You read that right. Strip naked and stand in a closet. These kids are 4 and 5 years old, according to reports.

Fox News:

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) runs the Head Start program held at the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Center in East St. Louis, where there is a class of about 20 preschoolers, SIUE Police Chief Kevin Schmoll told reporters.
“The one teacher said she didn’t learn this anywhere, this is what she tried and felt it would calm the children down by doing this,” Schmoll told FOX 2 of St. Louis. “But it’s obviously in no teaching manual anywhere. It’s inappropriate and against the law to do this.”

Police believe the students were ages 4 and 5, and at least four young boys in the classroom were punished in the alleged incident, according to a published report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The classroom's teacher is reported to be 26 years old, while her teaching assistant is 41. Both have been suspended without pay, awaiting the outcome of an investigation. The teacher admits to the punishment, while the assistant is in hot water for making no attempt to intervene, and also for not reporting the incident afterwards.