The incident happened at Sanchez Elementary School in southeast Houston. HISD has reassigned the substitute teacher, but the boy's mom says she's furious, and she isn't sure that's enough.
Parent Melissa Ordonez has taken a meeting with the assistant principal, filed two reports with HISD police about this duct tape incident, and still the substitute teacher has his job.
Isaiah Greenwood, 5, is still coy about what happened to him last month in his kindergarten classroom at Sanchez Elementary.
"The teacher put tape on my mouth," he said. "It was a tape, and it hurts."
His mother, not so much.
"I'm disgusted with these people," she said simply.
Ordonez says on November 5, Isaiah's substitute teacher, Mr. Fematt, put duct tape on Isaiah's mouth because he was talking too much. She didn't find out about it until the next day.
"I was mad," Ordonez said. "It was already too late by the time it was stated to us what happened. So I went up to the school this morning and I asked to speak to the principal."
Eyewitness News obtained the conference notes from that meeting. The preliminary investigation was conducted by the assistant principal, Mr. Garcia.
He stated Mr. Fematt admitted that he "cut a little piece of duct tape and had it placed on his desk as a warning" to students.
isaiah wouldn't stop talking in class, so Mr. Fematt told the principal, "He pointed to the tape and Isaiah went and put it on his mouth."
"Putting him in the corner, that's fine, Ordonez said. "Putting tape over his mouth -- way over the top."
On top of that, his mother says Isaiah has asthma.
HISD released this statement to Eyewitness News: "Sanchez Elementary School administrators and HISD Police conducted a thorough investigation, but ultimately determined there was not enough evidence to support the allegations made in November against the substitute teacher."
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