Fired Montessori Teacher In Hoboken Indicted For Alleged Child Abuse

A grand jury indicted a former teacher at Hoboken Apple Montessori School on Friday for allegedly mistreating a child in an incident captured on video.

On Friday, a jury indicted Kelli Dugan, a 31-year-old former teacher at the Hoboken school on charges of endangering the welfare of a child and child abuse, NBC New York reported.

A cell phone video allegedly shows Dugan holding a two-year-old by the legs, cursing and holding her over a fence, NBC reported.

The indictment comes a week after a grand jury declined to indict another accused worker at the school for a separate instance of alleged mistreatment, also caught on video.

• See related article: Hoboken School Aide Not Indicted For Alleged Rough Treatment Of Child

School administrators fired five workers after the videos surfaced in June.

See related article: Five Staffers Fired After Video Surfaces

Later that month, a pair of Hoboken parents filed a lawsuit against the school in connection with the incident.

The parents sought unspecified damages from Apple Montessori Schools and several employees for negligence, emotional damage, breach of contract and assault.

• See related article: Hoboken Parents File Lawsuit Against Montessori School

After the lawsuit was filed, Apple Montessori representatives reached out to Patch with the following statement:

“Apple Montessori takes the safety and well-being of all students seriously, and has a 40-year reputation for quality in care and education of children. We too are outraged by the unacceptable and inexcusable behavior of the individuals involved, and took immediate, definitive action when learning of the incident. Further, the school has taken new measures to strengthen our staff training, security and child-safety protocols.”

Reported changes in response to the incident included:

• An expanded video monitoring system with additional strategically placed cameras in all Apple schools
• The addition of online systems providing parents with live access daily, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
• All locations are implementing a parent swipe card entry system and a parent fingerprint sign-in and sign-out system
• The school is expanding its Human Resources Department by 20 percent and increasing human resource functions to include a review of current fingerprinting and background checking procedures and an examination of current hiring practices
• Third-party review of all current training practices by a recognized human resources expert. This includes the immediate implementation of the New Jersey Department of Education “Keeping our Kids Safe in School – Child Abuse, Missing Child, 4 Module Program.”
• The start of “Positive Parenting” training series that includes topics such as Child Abuse, Dealing with Tantrums, Principles of Behavior and Safe Schools.
• The creation of a Parent Liaison Committee

Send Hoboken news tips to eric.kiefer@patch.com