Fifth-grade students in a Bernalillo Elementary School classroom documented ongoing abuse by their teacher towards a 10-year-old student, according to new details from a federal lawsuit related to similar allegations against the teacher moving through state court reported by the Sandoval Signpost last week.
Last week, the Sandoval Signpost reported on a lawsuit alleging a 5th-grade teacher at Bernalillo Elementary School subjected a 10-year-old student to months of physical abuse and racist verbal attacks.
Following our reporting last week on a state court lawsuit against the school district, the Sandoval Signpost uncovered a new federal lawsuit with additional, disturbing claims. The Signpost obtained from public records court documents and the teacher’s personnel files that revealed new, disturbing details.
The federal lawsuit, filed Jan. 27 on behalf of a minor identified as Jane Doe, alleges the teacher grabbed Jane Doe by the neck and wrist, threw books at her, called her a “bitch,” “stupid,” “disgusting,” and told her she came from “an idiot family.” When Jane Doe wet herself after the teacher refused to let her use the restroom, the suit alleges the teacher told her she would have to clean it up with a straw and then ridiculed her in front of the class. The complaint further alleges the teacher showed the class photographs from Jane Doe’s Instagram account to mock her and told her that Jesus was coming for everyone but her.
Four of Jane Doe’s classmates later provided handwritten statements corroborating the abuse, according to the lawsuit, and also described the teacher using a racial slur against a student, showing students nude photographs on her phone and giving students her personal cell number.
After Jane Doe reported the misconduct to the principal in February 2023, the complaint alleges the investigation was superficial — with student interviews lasting one to two minutes — and that the teacher used Snapchat to contact students and influence their accounts while the investigation was ongoing. The complaint further alleges district officials retaliated against Jane Doe by reassigning her mother, a bilingual district employee at the school, to a more distant campus the following school year.
The teacher entered into a Stipulated Agreement with the New Mexico Public Education Department on June 16, 2025, resulting in the suspension of her license.
In this agreement, the teacher acknowledged that the New Mexico Public Education Department possessed “a legal residuum of evidence of misconduct” that, if not countered, would justify disciplinary action against her licenses.
The agreement further states that the New Mexico Public Education Department alleged the teacher engaged in inappropriate conduct toward a student between August 2022 and February 2023. This is consistent with information from the teacher’s personnel files, which show the teacher’s admission of misconduct. The teacher’s license was suspended for two months.
Bernalillo Public Schools Superintendent Matthew Montaño said in an interview with the Signpost that the teacher was hired before he joined the district and that he learned of the full scope of her history through the litigation process and replaced the HR director in June 2025 after concluding the department needed new leadership. Montaño said a board vote is upcoming on a formal review of hiring and investigation practices going back several years.
“Nothing’s 100% foolproof,” Montaño said, “but if there are concerns with investigations, we know what those concerns are, and then we can actually fix them.”
The district’s spokesperson previously said Bernalillo Public Schools does not comment on pending litigation.
