Green Valley Elementary teacher won't face charges after false stabbing report

FREDERICK COUNTY, Md. - Parents say there are still unanswered questions and calls for accountability after a Frederick County elementary teacher took her students out of school and made a false report about a mass stabbing last week.

On Monday, Frederick County State’s Attorney Charlie Smith said the Green Valley Elementary School teacher, who has not been publicly identified, will not face criminal charges after an evaluation of the case.

"Based upon the sheriff's office investigation, we do not believe that there are any criminal acts as a result of her conduct," Smith said in a statement.

The sheriff’s office said the teacher was taken to the hospital following the incident and the school district has said she’s now on leave "receiving the necessary support."

Frederick teacher who walked class to café, alleged stabbings won't face charges

Kieran Mara, whose son was in the fifth-grade class with the teacher, said he hopes she gets the help she needs.

"Many people don’t want her to face criminal charges that I’ve spoken to," Mara said. "I certainly don’t. My wife doesn’t, my child doesn’t. But I would say that there’s growing anger as we find out more and more about the response the school had."

Mara has posted a timeline of events from Thursday on Facebook using information from his son, his daughter who was at the school, first responders, and school administration.

"The biggest issue to my family and to many families that I’ve spoken to are the 33 minutes between when they became aware that the students were missing and when the police actually called them about these faux stabbing incidents," Mara said. "The fact is that nobody ever made a call out from the school to report that 27 students and a teacher were missing. That’s the number one concern."

Mara shared emails from school officials he’s been in contact with, including one with a school administrator that addresses the timeline. The email says it was 11:37 a.m. when the teacher and students left campus.

According to the email, at 11:55 a.m., another teacher realized the class was gone and started looking for them. The school administrator tells Mara it was about 12:05 p.m. when that teacher notified the administration of the missing class. Nearly 20 minutes passed until the teacher and students made it to Buzz Cafe and told an employee to call 911. The call came in at 12:24 p.m.

The sheriff’s office says when they got the stabbing report they called the school and only then found out that the teacher and her class were missing. The school went into a lockdown at 12:38 p.m.

According to police radio traffic, a member of law enforcement stated: "There’s nobody stabbed at the school, however, they are missing one teacher and currently can’t locate approximately 30 students."

At 1:26 p.m., the school emailed parents with a brief summary of what happened. A later email stated that the teacher in question was following school district protocol after she thought there was a threat and then removed her students from school.

"When they called me at 3:09 p.m. finally to tell me, they read a script that said, ‘Your son was removed from campus. At all times we were following protocol and at all times he was safe and secure,’" said Mara. 

Mara said it was his son who told him what actually happened. Investigators say the teacher walked about ¾ of a mile through the woods and told students to remove brightly colored clothes and drop their cell phones. They say the teacher took off her own shirt arriving at the café in a sports bra. The sheriff’s office as well as Mara’s son said that students were crying at the thought of violence at their school, and some were injured from walking through heavy brush in the woods. 

"What part of protocol is removing children’s clothing? What part of safe is my child bleeding? What part of secure is my child missing?" Mara asked.

FOX 5 reached out to Frederick County Public Schools Monday for comment and to confirm the timeline of events. We have not heard back.