Two boys and a girl in the fifth grade allegedly tried to poison their teacher with rat poison, not once but twice. The attemeted poisoning came to light two months after it happened, only because a parent was bragging that her son saved the teacher's life by preventing her from drinking the poisoned coffee. The boy, was allegedly the one who poisoned the coffee in the first place.
The Fresno Teachers Association claims the Balderas Elementary students put rat poison in their teachers coffee the week before Christmas break. One of hte boys apparently had a change of heart and knocked the mug out of the teachers hand asw she was about to drink it. FTA says the kids then poisoned the frosting of a cupcake and gave it to the same teacher. Luckily, the teacher never ate it.
"I heard that the reason why they did it, was because they didn't like the teacher... because they're strict," said a sixth grader at Balderas Elementary School.
The question now is how to move forward with punishing the kids, two of them are only 10 the other 11 years old.
"They're fully aware, if you looked at this rat poison, moose poison whatever you want to call it, that it will kill. it's listed on there. i mean, that's why intentionally the students brought it," said Greg Gadams, FTA President.
"We've talked to some more people, and essential the physical evidence is not there because this happened in December 2011," said Lt. Mark Salazar.
The Teachers Association claims they are coming forward because Fresno Unified School District has a histotry of covering up incidents of teachers getting beat up or receiving death threats.
Fresno Unified denied CBS47's request for an interview, but Susan Bedi a spokesperson for the district released a written statement that said in part "...typically disciplinary action would include suspension with a recommendation for expulsion."
"Our intent isnt that we want the students to be, you know, languishing in juvenile hall or anything. but what were concered about is that what kind of message does it send? because other students know these types of things happened on campus," said Gadams.
Two of the students were transfered to Phoenix Elementary, a school for kids with disciplinary issues. It's unclear what will happen with the third child.