JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A former Duval County teacher of the year said she is devastated and maintains she did nothing wrong after charges of child abuse were dropped by the State Attorney’s Office.
“And what was really upsetting to me was, you know, I was guilty until proven innocent, which is very mixed up,” Caroline Lee told News4JAX on Tuesday.
Lee, 61, said her previously flawless reputation was dragged through the mud for months after an eighth-grade student at Darnell-Cookman School of the Medical Arts accused her of hitting her in the face and kicking her while in her classroom.
Now Lee is working to clear her name and make sure the trauma she said she experienced never happens to another teacher.
It was a story that made national headlines last year, in publications like the New York Post and NBC News.
Lee was arrested and charged with child abuse in October 2021, just days after being named teacher of the year at the school.
But those charges were dropped earlier this year by the State Attorney’s Office, which cited a lack of evidence and “no reasonable probability of conviction.”
A disposition obtained by News4JAX points out the difference in size between the student and the teacher. The student is significantly taller than 5-foot-2 Lee, the disposition said, and “it would have been extremely difficult for the Defendant to have struck the Victim in the face.”
“Even though the Victim appeared with blood present, the pictures do not prove beyond a reasonable doubt the blood resulted from a strike,” the report reads. “The Defendant has been consistent in her denial of the account, and the physical size of the parties and description of events is consistent with her account. Additionally, the Defendant has a viable argument that the Victim reported the incident in an effort to avoid another disciplinary action from the school administration.”
Now Lee is talking about how the accusations changed her life.
“I was in my peak place, you know. I’ve been at the school now 10 years, and I was teacher of the year and my students love me...I just love teaching, and then in a snap of a finger, you know, with no warning, nothing, it was all taken away from me,” Lee said.
Lee said it all started with an Instagram post congratulating her on winning “Darnell-Cookman Teacher of the Year” honors. She said the student made a derogatory accusation under that post.
“I said, you know what, before this gets out of hand, let me call the student in and explain to her that, you know, social media once you put it up there, it’s up there,” Lee said. “I had a poster on my wall, which is like an anti-cyberbullying poster and said, ‘Don’t be a cyberbully. Now go back to your class.’ And out the back door she went. And I was just carrying on with what I was doing the next thing the assistant principal comes and said, ‘Please come with me.’”
What followed turned Lee’s life upside down.
“[An investigator] showed me a picture of a girl with a bleeding nose and kind of hair everywhere. And I was like, ‘Well, I don’t know,’ you know. Literally, my mouth went dry. My palms were sweaty. What is this? How? Have I been framed?” Lee recalled.
Lee, who denied the accusations immediately, was later handcuffed and taken to the Duval County jail, an experience that she said stays with her.
“I think I saw a slight glimpse of hell. You know, it was like Dante’s Inferno. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,” she said.
But Lee — who was stripped of her teacher of the year title and forced to work at a district office away from the school while it was under investigation — said the hardest part was leaving her students.
She said they were affected negatively when she was removed and wished the district handled things differently — by looking at her clean background.
According to the state attorney, the student had a disciplinary record at the school that included a fight and a five-day suspension. Lee said she hopes that the student gets the professional help they need.
Lee said the district owes her an apology and believes taxpayer money was wasted during the process.
“I would like an apology and I would like my Florida Department of Education license to be reinstated. I want to go back to public school. I want to go back to Duval schools. Because as much as the students need me, I need them because I am passionate,” Lee said.
DCPS told News4JAX there remains an open and active investigation with the school district, so it can not comment and added that Lee is no longer employed by the district.
Lee, who’s been working as a teacher at a local private school, said she also wants her teacher of the year title back, which she said will help her move on from the difficult experiences over the past 10 months.
