Special-Ed Teacher Expected To Be Fired Over Tirade

A Seminole County special education teacher is expected to be fired soon for screaming at a disabled student in a 26-minute long tirade. Several other students witnessed it and, from an audio recording WFTV obtained, it’s clear there were at least four other students in the classroom witnessing the yelling and obscenities.

The tirade lasted so long one student actually pulled out a cell phone or MP3 device and recorded the argument.

Cydney Abrams had been a teacher at Winter Springs High School since 2002, but an argument with one of her “special diploma” students last March grew so heated she may soon be fired.

“What the ****** are you gonna do? Are you just gonna use profanity and think that's gonna shock me?” Abrams questioned the student on the recording.

Abrams' 26-minute shouting match is laced with so much obscenity, from her and from the student, WFTV is only using pieces of it and will not be posting it unedited online to protect the students’ identities.

It began when the senior girl criticized Abrams' teaching, but it quickly devolved into name-calling with the teacher picking on her emotionally-unstable student.

“Anything you say about me, it goes right back to you! So, ‘stupid’ would be you, your friends and your family,” Abrams is heard saying on the recording.

"Special diploma" students have emotional and mental handicaps so severe they can never be in mainstream classes. At one point, Abrams seems to taunt the girl for her disability.

“You are sitting up here trying to convince your classmates that you wanted to take a special diploma. You had to, sweetheart,” Abrams says on the recording.

“What are you talking about?” the students asks.

“You are incapable,” Abrams says.

“You said, ‘Idiot.’ I said, I am not an idiot,” the student replies.

Abrams is trained with a bachelor and associate’s degree to deal with their special needs, but that training didn't keep the fight from snowballing as she finally demanded that the girl find a new teacher.

“Will you do that for me? So that way I don't have to do it. That way I don't have to look at you in my classroom anymore!”

WFTV played the audio for Ellen Lumb, mother of a special education student at Winter Springs High. She said Abrams' termination is the only acceptable outcome.

“It's a difficult job, but no teacher should be able to speak like that to students, ever,” she said.

Abrams was suspended with pay about three weeks after the fight and suspended without pay about two weeks after that. She's been fighting the district's termination plans ever since, though WFTV hasn't been able to get in touch with her.

Abrams has been in trouble before. WFTV learned she was reprimanded in 2004 for disparaging a student.