The mother of a Black 5-year-old student is demanding the termination of a white Arkansas teacher who forced her son to unclog a school bathroom toilet with his bare hands.

“She got on the phone with me and she said she didn’t have an explanation, she just knew she was wrong,” Ashley Murry, the boy’s mother, told local news station KARK. “But she stated to the principal that she was trying to teach how not to stop up the toilet.”

The boy, identified on his family’s GoFundMe page as Ashton, is a kindergarten student at Crystal Hill Elementary School in Little Rock. The child’s mother said she was horrified to learn that he was instructed to remove feces and soiled toilet paper from the toilet.

The boy’s grandmother, Tami, criticized the teacher’s inability to provide a rationale behind the directive, strongly expressing that it was not acceptable.

“You want a child to put their hand in there physically and clean out the commode? No, no, no, no, no. He’s not a janitor. He’s not a custodian. He’s not maintenance. No, not at all,” the grandmother said.

On Tuesday, a Twitter thread exposed school teacher Karla Lasiter as the person responsible.

BREAKING: Elementary school teacher Karla Lasiter made a 5 YEAR-OLD BLACK student clean feces out of the toilet last Friday w/ his bare hands. She stated “she doesn’t know why she made him do it.” Crystal Hill Elementary, North Little Rock, AR has her on administrative leave. ???? pic.twitter.com/NywlG9dtIP

— Juice (@DjWalt_) March 10, 2021

Ashley has since pulled Ashton out of classes at the school and has urged that the teacher be held accountable for traumatizing her son. According to KARK, the Pulaski County Special School District has placed the teacher on administrative leave and said it is “actively” investigating the incident. School district officials told KARK that the teacher will remain on administrative leave pending the investigation.

“Employees across the district work hard every day to create an environment where students feel safe and protected. As is district policy, we cannot disclose information in regards to disciplinary personnel matters,” the district told KATV in a statement.

The family of the student, however, said they feel the teacher needs to be removed in order to ensure the safety of all children.

“She needs to be terminated because you don’t treat kids like this. He is a kid,” Ashley said.

“I don’t ever want this to happen to another child again,” Tami added.

According to the family’s GoFundMe page, the family is seeking “assistance with legal fees as they try to seek justice from the Pulaski County Special School District.” The campaign will also support the needs of Ashton, who his mom said has been traumatized, with counseling as a result of the horrific experience.

A KATV report published by Fox News 26 found that another mother of a Crystal Hill kindergartener said a similar incident happened to her daughter at the hands of a different teacher last fall. The young girl allegedly used too much toilet paper and was asked to remove the clog with her bare hands, her mother said. The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, contacted the school district who told her it would conduct an investigation.

"This is a common occurrence at this school it seems," the mother said. "I told them, 'I pay my taxes so you can have janitors at the school, not kids unclogging toilets.'"

Pulaski-County-Special-School-District

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