Kindergarten Teacher Responds to Controversial Allegations

In response to the troubling case of alleged abuse towards a child who attended Kindergarten No. 124, kindergarten teacher Irina Aleksanyan speaks with Aravot.am regarding the details presented by the child's mother yesterday.

“First of all, when the child’s mother says that I had two phones and that I gave the second phone to the children to watch cartoons, I must clarify that I have not had two phones; I have had one phone during that time. She mentions the participation of seven children; well, did none of those seven children go home and talk about what happened in kindergarten? These children are 4-5 years old, and surely this would not have been a normal occurrence for them. They tell everything at home – what they ate, what they drank, what they did. Our kindergarten is small, and it is impossible for something to happen and the other group not to know about it. Our kindergarten has only two groups; it is like a small house kindergarten, and it is impossible to keep something secret without anyone knowing. In other words, how do you imagine that if such an occurrence took place in kindergarten, which parent would stay silent?” said Irina Aleksanyan.

In response to our observation that it is a small kindergarten and, according to the child’s parent, the children of the kindergarten employees mostly attend, and that they are relatives, making it possible that such an incident could remain unnoticed inside the kindergarten, our interlocutor replied: “There is no familial connection; I, when I entered that kindergarten, was initially a parent, and later, when the director learned that I had the appropriate education, I was hired there. Moreover, I want to emphasize that I worked as a second-shift teacher, meaning I went to work at three o'clock and interacted with the child during the time I substituted the first-shift teacher, which might occur once a year when she goes on vacation or falls ill for a week. I saw that child only during that time; on other days, she would bring the children in earlier, around one or two o'clock. In other words, what she mentioned simply cannot be true.”

According to the teacher, the mentioned child was very introverted and had a hard time adapting to the environment, having played almost exclusively with a single toy that she brought along.