Caught on tape: Teacher tells 10th graders to work hard or they’ll have to ‘sell their bodies’

CUTLER BAY, Fla. – “How else are you going to make money? Steal or sell your bodies. Be a whore?”

That’s the advice an unidentified teacher gives to her tenth-grade students in an effort to boost their performance in class. The classroom rant is caught in a recording that’s circulating on social media.

The clip surfaced on Tik-Tok by user “auntkaren0″ who claims the teacher works at Mater Academy on Southwest 87th Avenue in Cutler Bay.

The Tik-Tok user says:

“I have a source who is telling me that students in the 10th grade are being told by a particular teacher that the best thing they can do is sell their bodies if they don’t succeed in their class.”

The user claims the lecture happened on Jan. 10.

At one point in the recording, you can hear a girl double back and ask, “You said sell our bodies?”

To which the teacher responds:

“I don’t know what else you are going to do if you can’t go to college, and you don’t want to sit here and have a good work ethic. What else are you going to do? Not submitting your work that we did in class is wrong, is lazy,” she can be heard saying on the recording.

Mater Academy falls under The Florida Charter School Alliance. The school sent Local 10 a statement when we inquired about who the teacher was and if there had been any disciplinary action.

“We are aware of a recording circulating on social media concerning statements made by a teacher at our school. This is an isolated incident. These comments do not reflect our school’s values or track record of service. We are taking appropriate measures to address the situation. We apologize to the students and parents who may have been affected by this incident.”

We did reach out to the school to see if the teacher was still in the classroom, if she was disciplined, or what actions were taken. The school’s comment was that they had no comment.

Local 10 News continues to press the school for answers about the teacher’s status.


About the Authors:

Alex Finnie joined the Local 10 News team in May 2018. South Florida is home! She was raised in Miami and attended the Cushman School and New World School of the Arts for high school.