Chapter 7 - The Children Who Saw
Briarwood hired a child psychologist to help staff respond to the classroom witnesses. Not interrogate them. Not recruit them as evidence. Some children had noticed almost nothing. One remembered Maisie crying. One remembered “hair falling.” Another said: “Teacher gave Maisie scissors.” That aligned with the video. No need to extract more.
The school’s licensing authority reviewed classroom supervision. Why had no assistant stopped Kendrick? Because the assigned assistant had been sent to another room eleven minutes earlier. By Ms. Kendrick. Staffing records confirmed it. That made the act more deliberate. She had created privacy without emptying the classroom. Children were present. But children were not credible witnesses in her mind. Another abuse of power. Adults mattered. Children did not. Until Ortiz looked through the window.
