Teachers Lock Toddlers In Supply Closet To Teach Them ‘How To Survive’

A 25-year-old teacher working at a day-care center in Brooklyn is in trouble after security-video footage showed her and an assistant teacher locking young toddlers into a small supply closet for a minute at a time.

According to a disturbing report in the New York Post, Tatiana Ilyaich, who owns the Pinocchio Children’s Palace, found teacher Shandra Fallen and her assistant, Amellia Samuda, forcing toddlers into the closet.

When she heard sobs coming from the classroom, she entered the room and noticed the sobs were coming from the supply closet.

When Ilyaich opened the closet door she was shocked to find a scared boy inside, as the two teachers “started laughing,” she recalled to reporters. Fallen told her, “It’s kind of a game we’re playing with the kids.”

In the security camera footage, which the day-care center owner checked after making her shocking discovery, Fallen can been seen forcing a toddler into the closet and leaving him there for three minutes before letting him out.

She then picked on a 2-year-old called Mahli and guided him to the same closet, shutting him inside for a full seven minutes. When Fallen returns, she opens the closet door, steps inside (out of the view of the camera), and then a minute later exits the closet, leaving the boy inside.

Worryingly, the other teacher can then be seen entering the closet for at least a minute and then exiting alone without Mahli who was finally allowed out after a full 10 minutes.

Ilyaich said that she reported the abuse to authorities and told parents what was going on, promptly firing both of the teachers based on the video footage she had witnessed.

The Administration for Children’s Services and the Health Department also investigated the incident even though the NYPD and the Brooklyn DA’s office said they had no record of the case.