"It hurt me because it made me feel like they didn't care about her, that they didn't respect her," said Jackie Baldwin, the student's mother.
The incident happened Tuesday. The aide wrote with a marker on 11-year-old Makada Christopher's arm: "Call Jayne!! to nite!"
"If you respect this child, there is no way you would have written on marker down her arm in a classroom where there's paper, pencils," Baldwin said.
Baldwin showed News 8 the communication notebook that comes home with her daughter every day. Inside, there are notes from the teacher and other aides, but she said the aide in this case elected not to use the tablet.
Baldwin met with the principal and the aide Wednesday morning. She said the aide admitted to writing the note, and mentioned that she forgot to include a phone number.
The message was a reminder for Baldwin to call the Special Olympics coach. The problem is, "Jayne" doesn't exist. The aide got the coach's name wrong and also misspelled "tonight."
"She said, 'I'm sorry for not putting the number on there,'" Baldwin said. "She never understood that it was wrong to do it."
The district took action hours after Baldwin complained.
"We thought the infraction was severe enough to remove this person from the district," said Grand Prairie ISD spokesman Sam Buchmeyer.
According to the district, the employee violated its procedures.
"This was a special needs student," Buchmeyer said. "There is a process in place already to communicate back-and-forth with the parent on the campus. Obviously, that was ignored."
For Baldwin, the aide — who was a nine-year veteran — failed to use common sense.
"If you didn't do it to hurt her, you did it because you didn't know any better," Baldwin said. "If you don't know any better and you are dealing with special needs children, then shame on you."
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