JUPITER, FL -- An eight-year-old girl tears up while sharing what she says her 2nd grade teacher, Patty Farmer, made her do.
The girl, whose parents asked that she be kept anonymous, explains, "Miss Farmer made me rub her back and her head....probably like 3 times a week."
But it wasn't just this girl, the Palm Beach County School District says several other students at Lighthouse Community Elementary School in Jupiter were asked to rub the 45-year-old teacher's neck, shoulders and head during class this school year.
The girl claims, she called them the "special kids," saying they were given candy as a reward.
"If I did it really, really good she would give me one," she explains.
The girl tells NewsChannel 5, this went on for months.
Although she didn't like it, she says she feared she couldn't say no, "...because its a teacher and I had to listen to her."
But the girl says one day she rubbed Farmer's shoulders so hard and for so long that it made her hands hurt.
That's when she finally decided to tell her parents.
The girl's mother, Kerri Libby, tells NewsChannel 5, "I said, 'No more. My daughter is there to learn; she's not there to rub her teacher's back."
The parents went to the principal.
School district spokesperson Nat Harrington says, Farmer confessed.
Harrington says, "It was avery unfortunate situation, poor judgment - the teacher admitted it was poor judgment."
In her 20 years teaching Farmer's had a clean record.
The school district decided not to take her out of the classroom, and instead gave her a formal reprimand.
Harrington tells NewsChannel 5, "In this case its serious, a reprimand is not a light thing, its in her file."
But Libby and her husband think Farmer should be fired.
They worry the back rubs could begin again when Farmer returns to teach again next year.
Libby's husband, Tim Libby, says "The school district is pushing this under the rug and hoping it will go away but its not gonna go away and I'm not gonna stop until she's out."
Farmer denied our request for an interview but Harrington tells NewsChannel 5 that she promised this would not happen again.
Tim and Kerri Libby say they met with the Department of Children and Families and they are investigating.
