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Ga. mom: School aide told 9-year-old to look up the 'n-word' and said she would be shot

A parent and Gwinnett County School System officials have different narratives of what actually happened.

GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. -- A mother and a school system are at-odds over a viral post on social media claiming misconduct by a lunchroom monitor.

Jasmine Hawkins’ post claims that after being insulted by students, the employee of a Gwinnett County elementary school pulled aside her child – who was allegedly not involved in the name-calling -- to “teach her a lesson.”

The monitor then allegedly asked the child how she would like to be called the n-word and told her to look it up in the dictionary – also adding that if she came to another side of town, she would be shot.

The mother’s post goes on to claim that despite corroboration by the assistant principal of the school, the employee was not fired or even disciplined for the comments.

“I told them I am NOT comfortable with my child being in the same building as an adult who felt comfortable enough to ask her if she would like to be shot let alone taunting her to look up the ‘N-word’ dictionary,” Hawkins said in her post.

11Alive's Kaitlyn Ross spoke with Hawkins who said that aide should have used better judgment and hopes that he's removed from the school.

"I'm in hopes that it would end with her dismissal from working around peoples' children if she can't have proper judgment to know that that's inappropriate," she said.

She said with this climate of school shooting threats and the state of race relations in this country, that comment from the employee hit hard in two ways.

"For the climate to be as racially charged as it is and with the school shooting, for you in one conversation with my daughter to involve both, that's a hate crime," she said.

Hawkins said she has reached out to everyone from the principal to the superintendent but said she feels defeated.

"I'm very frustrated. I feel helpless. I feel defeated...to have my daughter come home yesterday and say that she was afraid to go into the lunch room and there is nothing, clearly, that I can do," she said.

"Your child is supposed to feel safe at home and at school. I feel like they failed her. They're not doing the best job that they can to insure that."

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However, a note from Gwinnett County Public Schools spokesperson Sloan Roach suggests that the claims in this quickly-spreading post aren’t accurate to what they found.

“The school did conduct a thorough investigation into this matter and the findings do not support what the parent is saying,” he said.

However, Roach said the employee has been reassigned due to “the interaction” the employee had with the student so that she does not have contact with the students.

Hawkins said the school's principal told her that the Human Resources Department is doing an investigation.

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