(C) Iowa Capital Dispatch
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School worker fired for falsely accusing student of TikTok bathroom video [1]
['Clark Kauffman', 'More From Author', '- February']
Date: 2024-02
A teacher’s assistant has been fired by an eastern Iowa school for fabricating a story about a student making a TikTok video in a bathroom.
Keli Runge worked for the Central DeWitt Community School District as a full-time middle school special education associate from 2022 until December 2023, when she was fired for dishonesty related to a false accusation against a student.
State records indicate that around 1 p.m. on Dec. 13, 2023, a student was reported missing from her middle school classroom. Principal Bill Petsche later found the student in the office and was told by the staff that Runge had reported catching the girl in a bathroom making a TikTok video when she was supposed to have been in class.
The student denied the accusation and said no adults had entered the bathroom while she was there. Petsche then spoke with Runge, who repeated the accusation. The principal then reviewed school security-camera footage of the hallway outside the bathroom where the student had been. He saw the student go into the bathroom and saw the student leave without anyone else entering or leaving the bathroom.
Two days later, when interviewed a second time, Runge allegedly reiterated that she had seen the student in the bathroom making a TikTok. When informed that a video showed she had had never entered the bathroom while the girl was there, Runge said she looked into the bathroom from the hallway and saw a cell phone on the sink and had concluded the student was recording a TikTok video. Because the video showed Runge nowhere near the bathroom entrance, Petsche discharged Runge for dishonesty.
At a subsequent hearing on her claim for unemployment benefits, Runge asserted that while she had not seen anything involving the girl in the bathroom as she had claimed, she “knew” the student had made TikTok videos in the past.
Petsche testified that the student was facing significant consequences – including a lengthy suspension of her right to carry a phone while at school – had the administration acted on Runge’s claims. He also testified he had talked with Runge multiple times in the past about the manner in which her version of various events conflicted with what students were claiming. Students, for example, had previously accused Runge of calling them names and using profanity – allegations Runge had denied.
Administrative Law Judge Elizabeth Johnson ruled that Runge had committed workplace misconduct and was not entitled to jobless benefits.
“Even after Petsche told (Runge) he knew she had not actually entered the bathroom, she persisted with the lie and maintained that she had witnessed the student making a TikTok in the bathroom, though she did not actually see the student,” Johnson wrote in her decision.
Runge was ordered to repay $1,176 in unemployment benefits already collected.
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