{"id":23905,"date":"2025-01-23T20:46:50","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T03:46:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mckinley-elementary-teacher-allegedly-batters-student\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:44:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:44:22","slug":"mckinley-elementary-teacher-allegedly-batters-student","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mckinley-elementary-teacher-allegedly-batters-student\/","title":{"rendered":"McKinley Elementary teacher allegedly batters student"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"McKinley
McKinley Elementary School in Farmington<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A Farmington elementary school teacher was placed on administrative leave after being charged with battery of a fourth grade student.<\/p>\n

Kathleen Kern, 33, of Aztec, was charged with a misdemeanor battery in connection to a Jan. 15 incident at McKinley Elementary School, 1201 N. Butler Ave.<\/p>\n

Farmington Police were called to the school at 5:11 p.m. \u201cin reference to a teacher reportedly kicking a desk into a student,\u201d according to the arrest affidavit.<\/p>\n

Kern, who was described by the principal as being a \u201cleader for other teachers,\u201d reportedly walked into the classroom of Elisabeth Walsh, a substitute teacher and complained her students were being noisy and acting like \u201cwild animals,\u201d the affidavit states.<\/p>\n

It was then that Kern allegedly \u201chad her fists clenched\u201d as she \u201c\u2018angrily\u2019 and \u2018quickly\u2019 walked\u201d to a desk, where Esaia Marquez, a fourth grade student, was \u201claughing and either drawing, writing or doing his work,\u201d according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

Walsh told police that Kern, using a \u201cfront kick\u201d motion, \u201c\u2018kicked the crap out of it,\u2019 causing the desk to collide with Mr. Marquez\u2019 chest,\u201d according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

Marquez reportedly told his mother \u201cthat Ms. Kern came into his class, and kicked his desk, causing the desk to tip him backwards.\u201d He stated \u201cthe desk fell on top of him, striking him in the chest,\u201d the affidavit states.<\/p>\n

Police reportedly saw the injury and described it as being bruised and \u201clocated on his chest starting from his sternum and extending to his left side,\u201d the affidavit states.<\/p>\n

The child was taken to Aztec Urgent Care, where a doctor reported that \u201cnothing was broken,\u201d according to the child\u2019s mother, Cassandra Marquez.<\/p>\n

A student questioned by Principal Becky Ferris reportedly stated the desk \u201chit him (Esaia) where your heart is,\u201d the affidavit states.<\/p>\n

Ferris confirmed that everyone questioned \u201chad the same story,\u201d the affidavit states.<\/p>\n

Ferris also reportedly told police that when she questioned Kern, the teacher stated that she \u201c\u2018lightly tapped\u2019 the desk with her foot, and \u2018he did not fall, nothing fell,\u2019\u201d the affidavit states.<\/p>\n

Ferris also told police that when Kern was sent home, she was \u201ccrying uncontrollably,\u201d according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

When police went to question Kern at her home, they discovered \u201cthe residence provided in her documentation for the school does not exist,\u201d but when they called her phone number she stated that she lives in Aztec and \u201chad not updated her information with the school yet,\u201d the affidavit states.<\/p>\n

Kern, who has been employed at the school since 2019, would not answer questions without the presence of her attorney, Victor Titus.<\/p>\n

Kern waived her arraignment on Jan. 21 in Farmington Magistrate Court, and her pretrial hearing was set for Feb. 18 in Magistrate Stanley King\u2019s courtroom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

student left with bruises on his chest<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23905"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78314,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23905\/revisions\/78314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23905"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}