KINGSPORT, Tenn. — A Kingsport City Schools teacher has been charged with 20 counts of child abuse and neglect.
According to court documents, Michelle Carpenter was charged on May 17 following incidents that occurred between August 2021 and March 2022.
According to a press release from Second Judicial District Deputy District Attorney William B. Harper, the alleged abuse involved three-year-old and four-year-old pre-K students. Many of these students were non-verbal and on the autism spectrum. Carpenter is accused of numerous cases of abuse including screaming in students' faces, leaving students in soiled diapers and digging her finger deeply into students' armpits.
The press release accused Kingsport City Schools administrators of conducting their own internal investigation and waiting nearly two weeks before notifying law enforcement and the Tennessee Department of Children's Services.
The school administration stated it received no information from the District Attorney General's Office regarding the investigative findings of the grand jury.
"We have severe disappointment in the school system in the way they handled this. Engaging in their own investigation in this matter instead of turning it over to law enforcement and DCS, and their failure to timely report this abuse as they should have under the law. It kind of put us behind the eight ball," said William Harper, the deputy District Attorney in Sullivan County.