Mother seeks $10,000 in damages after teacher allegedly calls son’s assignments ‘trash’

An El Paso fifth -grader’s mother is suing his teacher for thousands of dollars after he claims she told him his schoolwork was ‘trash.’

Kirkpatrick Noaker, 9, a student at Del Norte Heights Elementary School, says when he turned in his schoolwork to his teacher, Carmen Grijalva, she told him it was trash.

“She said, ‘What do I look like, trash?'” Noaker said. “I said ‘no ma’am.’ She said ‘t, ‘Then why are you giving me trash?'”

Angela Noaker, Kirkpatrick’s mother says she went to the school and spoke with Grijalva after her son told her what had happened.

Noaker says she thought the teacher understood what she had said was inappropriate, but Noaker says she did it again.

Kirkpatrick says only days after his mother went to the school, during a tutoring session, he turned in a math assignment. Once again, he says Grijalva called his work trash.

Noaker says after the second incident she filed the lawsuit in small-claims court, seeking $10,000 in damages.

A spokeswoman for the Ysleta Independent School District writes in a statement:

“The district is surprised and dismayed at the allegations in the lawsuit because the allegations are false. However, we have faith in the legal system and will leave the defense of the lawsuit to the legal experts who are in charge of representing Ms. Grijalva.”

Carmen Grijalva states in a court affidavit, part of a motion for dismissal of the lawsuit, that the incident never happened.

Noaker said their next day in court is in February or March.

Noaker says J.J. Armes, an El Paso private investigator, will be giving Kirkpatrick a lie-detector test