New details were revealed in court about a Saugus, Massachusetts, middle school teacher arrested for allegedly having drugs inside the school building.
A bag belonging to Roxanne Plaskon, 52, had six grams of fentanyl inside a pill bottle, according to a Saugus police report. When officers asked her about the drug, she said she took them for pain, and had taken some in a faculty bathroom in the morning. She declined to say where she'd gotten the drugs.
A judge in Lynn District Court Friday ordered that Plaskon continue substance abuse treatment she was already undergoing, noting she had no prior run-ins with the law. As she left court, having already posted bail, she declined to answer questions.
Officers were called to Saugus Middle High School twice on Thursday morning, according to the Saugus police report. First, a suspicious substance was found in a faculty bathroom; the pill bottle in the classroom prompted the second call.
Officers interviewed Plaskon, a seventh-grade teacher in an administrative office where she'd been taken, according to the police report.
When Plaskon's arrest was first announced, police didn't specify what kind of drug was found beyond that it was a Class A substance, which can refer to opiates, such as heroin or fentanyl, as well as other drugs like ecstasy, ketamine or methamphetamine.
The school administration released a statement Thursday that read in part: "Both the Saugus administration and Saugus Police Department addressed the situation, following the appropriate procedures and laws, to make sure that at no time was the safety of students or staff in jeopardy."
A parent told NBC10 Boston they saw the science teacher in handcuffs and escorted by police out of the school.
"To have this happen? What are we gonna do? We can't trust our teachers anymore?" a parent told NBC10 Boston on Thursday.
"One bad apple does not discredit the rest of the teachers, the faculty, the staff here because there plenty of them doing good things," said another parent.
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NBC10 Boston also spoke with a handful of her students — some who were shocked to learn about the arrest.
"I saw police it was all over the school, people saw her coming out," said seventh grader Jenna Pabon.
"I see her all the time and she never looked like she did anything bad, so it definitely surprised me," said eighth grade student Amani Guenanou.
"She was nice, doesn't give out much homework," said Jonathan Fernandes, a student of Plaskon. "But [there was] a lot of like sleeping, like, napping."
"I feel like it doesn't give a good example and I was pretty scared," said another one of Plaskon's students Ayla Hibbard. "I felt like I was going to wake up the next day and Ms. Plaskon was going to be teaching and it was all like a fake dream because it did not feel real at all."
