A 23-year-old Milwaukee woman faces six felony counts after prosecutors say she posed as a substitute teacher at her former high school and spent two class periods berating teenagers with racial slurs, sexual comments, and insults before staff removed her from the building.
Amy L. Jones signed into Rufus King International High School on the morning of Sept. 24 as “Amy Jones sub” after telling office staff she was a substitute from TalentBridge, the agency that supplies the school’s fill-in teachers, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office. She did not work for the school, for Milwaukee Public Schools, or for the agency, and investigators wrote that she had no training or experience as a teacher at all. The charging details were reported by the Journal Sentinel.
Court documents say Jones, a former Rufus King student, scouted the school one week earlier, blending in with students to pass through security and walk the halls. On that earlier visit she asked a student how to sneak in, and the student told her which door to use, detectives wrote. She then overheard staff in the main office discussing the substitute agency and decided on the spot to present herself as a fill-in teacher.
The ruse worked because of a staffing gap. Eight teachers were absent at Rufus King that day and only seven of the positions were filled, the complaint states. Principal Doreen Badillo later told police she believed Jones “got lucky because there happened to be an unfilled position,” according to FOX6. A real teacher stayed in the classroom with Jones for roughly the first 20 minutes while materials were set up, and students said her behavior changed the moment that teacher walked out.
Students reported to a school resource officer that Jones was “using profane language, racial slurs, sexually derogative statements and organizing students by race and gender in class,” according to WISN. They said she screamed at the class, used the N-word, blasted rap music, and “dissed” students over their weight, race, looks, and money. The complaint describes a classroom that had no way to remove her because everyone believed she was the substitute the front desk had been expecting.
A 16-year-old boy told police Jones called one student “fat boy,” asked a female student whether she wanted to be a stripper or a hooker, and told two white boys they were “the type of people to start school shootings,” the complaint says. Other students said she asked whether they were gay or virgins, requested a vape or marijuana because the class was “so f—ing lame and annoying,” and bragged about having felonies and being fine with going to jail.
At least one student recorded parts of the incident and turned the video over to investigators, giving police direct evidence of the classroom conduct, Hoodline reported. When detectives interviewed Jones on Sept. 30, she opened with an admission: “Yeah because I was impersonating a teacher.” She acknowledged giving students what she called a “birds and the bees talk,” conceded the conduct “was not appropriate,” and told investigators she came to the school because she was bored, hates kids, and “just wanted to ‘f- around.'”
Students had reported her to the school resource officer around 10:10 a.m., and Badillo went to the classroom and told Jones she needed to leave, escorting her out of the building as the third period got underway, the complaint states. Jones left identifying documents behind in the classroom, and administrators used them to confirm that the woman who had posed as a substitute was a former student the staff already recognized.
The District Attorney’s Office charged Jones with one felony count of impersonating a public employee and five felony counts of exposing a child to harmful descriptions. If convicted on all six counts, she faces up to 21 years in prison and $60,000 in fines, the Journal Sentinel reported. Her initial court appearance was scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 6, according to online court records.
In a Sept. 24 letter to Rufus King families, Badillo wrote that the district’s initial investigation determined the individual was “a former student recognized by staff” and not a substitute teacher. “We did involve our Milwaukee Police Department school resource officers the day that this occurred. The district’s Title IX coordinator was also notified,” the letter said. The district added that it is conducting its own investigation alongside the police case.
The case has drawn attention to how easily an unauthorized adult can slip past a front desk that is short on substitutes, a breach pattern Hypefresh has tracked in other settings, from the Chilean men who broke into Joe Burrow’s home and took selfies with his jewelry to the years of stalking that ended with an intruder at Eminem’s home being found guilty. School cases now moving through the courts, including Karmelo Anthony’s bond being cut to $250,000 after a high school stabbing, have kept the focus on what districts owe students after the fact. At Rufus King, prosecutors say the person students could not remove from their classroom was never a teacher at all.
