Teacher Sprays Kids With Aerosol Over Improper Mask-Wearing: Cops

LARGO, FL — A Largo High School teacher was arrested after being accused of spraying four students with disinfectant when they refused to wear face masks properly in her classroom.

According to the Largo Police Department, Christina Reszetar, 51, was charged with four counts of felony child abuse with great bodily harm Wednesday.

An Exceptional Student Education math teacher at Largo High School for 18 years, Reszetar, sprayed aerosol disinfectant into the faces and bodies of four students because they refused to wear their coronavirus masks correctly, police said.

The incident was captured on surveillance video but police have not released a copy of the video.

Reszetar, who lives in Largo, is still employed by the Pinellas County School District, which has not commented on the teacher's arrest at the high school.

Pinellas Sheriff

On Thursday, she was released from the Pinellas County Jail on her own recognizance.

News of the teacher's arrest comes as the second semester of public school in Tampa Bay began and teachers are expressing concern about their risks of contracting the coronavirus.

Bianca Goolsby, founder of a Tampa Bay teachers advocacy and activist organization, Teaching for the Culture, said there is a great deal of anxiety among teachers being asked to return to the classroom with only masks and social distancing to protect them against the growing coronavirus epidemic in Tampa Bay.

On Jan. 3, the day before Tampa Bay teachers returned to the classroom following winter break, she hosted a livestreamed YouTube program titled "Afraid to Return" in which teachers spoke out about their fears.

Several expressed the same concerns that prompted Reszetar to take drastic action against her students to relay the importance of masks.

Although all Tampa Bay school districts require students and staff to wear face masks and maintain 6 feet of social distance, the teachers participating in the program said it's not always possible or practical in small classrooms and crowded school hallways.

Hillsborough County educator Michelle Stover is both an educator and mother. She also has a compromised immune system but said she had no choice but to return to the classroom because her husband's job was shut down due to the coronavirus, and she wasn't given one of the school district's coveted e-learning teaching positions.

"We cannot socially distance in school. There are many classrooms where students are packed in tight. They're still not 6 feet apart in my classroom. Students are not wearing their masks correctly. Many are coming from an environment where masks are not supported, and they're defiant," she said.

Stover said 25 teachers in Florida have died after contracting the coronavirus, and she feels she's risking her life every time she walks into her classroom.

However, despite appeals by the state's teacher's union, Florida school boards and superintendents, she said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has refused to give educators priority access to the coronavirus vaccine. DeSantis has chosen to focus on getting the vaccine to residents age 65 and up.

"The governor says it's because we have a choice (to teach in the classroom or online), which isn't true," said Stover. The majority of teaching positions available in Florida are in school classrooms. Opportunities to teach online from home are few and far between. In fact, to save money, some school districts are having educators simultaneously teach in the classroom while being livestreamed for students learning at home.

"If you want to teach in Florida, you have to go to school," she said.

Although she has asthma, Hillsborough County teacher April Cobb said she, too, wasn't given an opportunity to teach online. And, as a single mother, she needed to return to the classroom, so she could support her family.

However, despite record numbers of positive coronavirus cases in Florida, she said there's an attitude among the student population that the danger has passed. They see images of crowded New Year's Eve parties at South Tampa bars and preparations for the Super Bowl being hosted in Tampa Bay in February.

"I'm concerned that children are ignorant of how dangerous the virus is," she said. "Society has deemed wearing a mask is not that important right now. We're acting like everything is normal. It is not. I'm very concerned. At some point, we have to be able to say that something different has to happen."

See related stories:

• Afraid To Return To School, Tampa Bay Teachers Speak Out
• Teachers File Suit Over Concerns About Reopening Florida Schools
• FDA Says Mutated Coronavirus Can Produce False Negative Results