School district investigating male teacher accused of entering girl's bathroom, trying to listen to students inside

Edgecombe County Public Schools is investigating after a high school student says a male teacher went into the girl’s bathroom at Southwest Edgecombe High School and tried to listen to students using the restroom, claiming he didn’t believe one student actually needed to go.

The mother of one of those students is now asking for the teacher to be put on leave during the district’s investigation.

“I don’t know what he was doing in there, or why, but I just know he had no business in there,” the girl’s mother told WRAL News.

The Edgecombe County resident said she got a series of texts from her daughter during school on Tuesday, including a picture of a male teacher inside the girl’s bathroom.

Her daughter claimed the teacher had followed another student to the bathroom, not believing that she had to go.

“And when he heard talking inside the bathroom or whatever, he stepped in because he ‘didn’t hear any water’ or using of the bathroom,” the student’s mother said.

The girl claimed the male teacher told the female students to use the bathroom loudly enough for him to hear it.

She said she refused and reported the man’s behavior to the school’s principal.

The student’s mother told WRAL News she also called the principal, who told her the same story as her daughter: that the man said he’d been following one of his students.

“And I was like that’s still unacceptable,” the woman said. “Because at the end of the day he could have went and got a female teacher or staff member to see what that student was doing, it still makes no sense to me.”

WRAL News reached out to Edgecombe County Public Schools for a response to the family’s concerns.

“We were made aware of this situation earlier today,” a spokesperson for the district said on Tuesday. “We take matters such as this seriously and we are conducting an investigation.”

The student’s mother felt the teacher should be held out of class.

“I feel like he should be at least suspended until they investigate,” the woman told WRAL News. “He had no reason going in the bathroom at all, no reason.”

WRAL News reached out to the teacher being investigated multiple times for comment, but he has not responded.