Police said that two Georgia preschool teachers were arrested on charges of child cruelty. The allegations were made on a classroom stream.
Zeina Alostwani (40), and Soriana Bricieno (40), were both former teachers at Parker-Chase preschool in Roswell. They were charged with first-degree child cruelty Monday, Roswell police stated in a statement.
Police said that the alleged physical contact between teachers and students aged 2 and 3 occurred on Thursday. A parent was watching the livestream and saw the incident.
Police said that a parent reported that he had logged onto the camera system to see concerning physical contact between Alostwani, Briceno and several children in the class.
Police provided the video to NBC News Wednesday, and it is just over a minute in length.
The video shows children sitting on a circle rug. It appears that one teacher steps on a child’s hand and then knees another child in the back.
The video also shows a second teacher on all fours getting very close to the child’s face and poking their foreheads with a finger. The same child was just moments before being kneed in the back.
Wednesday afternoon was unclear if Alostwani had retained lawyers or Briceno. They were unable to be reached immediately for comment. They were also unavailable for comment from their relatives.
Endeavor Schools, the company responsible for the preschool’s supervision, stated that the teachers in the video were fired.
The statement stated that “we were shocked and disappointed to discover that… teachers from the Parker-Chase pre-Primary B classroom used inappropriate discipline actions with children.” The statement stated that the teachers involved were removed immediately from the classroom and dismissed. We reported the matter to our licensing agency, Children’s Protect Services, and we are fully cooperating with authorities. They informed us that criminal charges have been filed. We are grateful to the children for their well-being and are continuing our investigation. We expect all of our staff to uphold the highest standards and we will not tolerate any infractions.
WXIA of Atlanta, NBC affiliate, reported that Gloria Barghi was a mother to one of the preschoolers and said her intuition led her to view the classroom through an app on her smartphone.
“I pulled up this app. She said that she picked it up just as the lead teacher was attacking the first victim.
