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SALT LAKE CITY -- Prosecutors have charged an assistant principal with child abuse and witness tampering after they say she slapped a student and tried to cover it up.
The charges say Rosselis Cabanillas slapped an 11-year-old boy across the face, leaving a red mark on his skin.
Granite District spokesman Ben Horsley says Cabanillas works at two elementary schools and was suspended from Granger Elementary when the district heard the allegations in mid-January. He says she was placed on administrative leave when the charges were filed last week.
"The district is doing everything it can to ensure the safety of its students," Horsley says. "We certainly take allegations of this kind very seriously."
Horsley says Cabanillas has been with the district since 1989.
"To my knowledge there's not been any sort of conduct like this that has occurred in the past," Horsley says.
Prosecutors say she also told a teacher not to tell anyone what had happened, saying, "You didn't see that. It didn't happen." But the child's mother called police that day.
Cabanillas is due in court in April. State education officials say she could either get a letter of reprimand or lose her license, depending on the circumstances.
"A conviction and going to trial is a portion of the district's investigation into matters like these. If we have sufficient evidence to terminate an employee, we will terminate that employee, regardless of the time frame of a criminal probe," Horsley says.
The director of school law at the Utah Office of Education said a parent can give an educator the right to physically discipline a child, but that was not the case in this situation.
Meanwhile, parents are reacting to news of the abuse charges.
"I had a neighbor tell me they thought it started with an altercation in the classroom," says Lula Valenzuela.
Valenzuela says she's disturbed by the whole thing.
"We expect them 100 percent to watch our children, no matter what," she says. "To have someone else lay a hand on your children, that's kind of uncalled for."
KSL News went to Cabanillas' home Thursday, but no one was there. Her first court appearance is in April.
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Story complied with contributions from Mary Richards and Sandra Yi.
