After a 20-day investigation that included 18 student statements, a Lake Washington High School biology teacher was suspended last month for taping a student to his desk on May 29.

The Lake Washington School District investigation found that Jennifer O’Hara violated the district’s human dignity policy, as well as the staff conduct policy, as she encouraged public ridicule and bullying in her classroom.

Investigation documents state O’Hara admitted to wrapping clear packaging tape once around a male student’s upper body to the back of his desk chair because he continued to walk around her second period biology class without permission.

During a June 11 meeting with district officials, O’Hara said the students were studying for an end-of-semester test and she wanted to “infuse humor to lighten the mood in the classroom.”

“She jokingly attempts to wrap me in packaging tape (I thought it was funny, I was OK with it),” the male student said in a written statement. “But then it seemed almost instantly that many students appeared around me and were actually trying to tape me to the chair I sat in.”

According to many witness statements, several students taped his arm, drew lines on his ears and a smiley face on the back of his neck. But the boy said he was even slapped on the face and neck, which he said hurt but did not cause injury. He said his football was also temporarily stolen.

“At this point, I was frustrated and it was not a joke at all,” the boy said, who added students also drew on his Spanish school work, ruining it.

During the taping and harassing the boy estimated between 10 to 15 students took photos or filmed the incident on their cell phones.

Frustrated and angry, the boy freed himself from the tape and walked out of the classroom to wait in the hall.

“He went from laughing to being mad in a matter of seconds and after he left, the class was confused,” said a student witness, who was in the biology class that day.

Another student said O’Hara tried to get the boy to return to class but he did not.

As the boy walked into his fourth period English class, English teacher Amy Sullivan overheard him talking to his friends who were “visibly shocked and full of frustration,” according to Sullivan’s witness statement.

The boy told her what happened and showed her the red smiley face on the back of his neck to confirm the story.

“I told him that she cannot be doing that to students and I said it was wrong that he was treated that way,” Sullivan said. “I told him that I would have to tell about what she did, by law. He asked me not to.”

But after Sullivan’s students began an assignment, a pass came for the boy to come to O’Hara’s room.

“When [the boy] got back, he was just as upset,” Sullivan said. “He said she apologized, but said it was ‘interesting’ and his tone of voice suggested something else may have been talked about that didn’t actually resolve the situation.”

It was later discovered that O’Hara had individually called some of her students to her room so that she could request they delete all photos or videos related to the incident, as well as request they apologize the next day.

In a letter to O’Hara written on June 17, the district’s Human Resources director Patricia Fowler-Fung said that O’Hara’s “efforts to remediate the situation by attempting to have videotape and photographs deleted, while possibly well-intended, could be viewed as self-serving and an attempt by [O’Hara] to cover [her] misconduct by asking students to destroy the evidence.”

Fowler-Fung continues to say that O’Hara’s excuse that she was not in her right mind, due to personal issues, was not an excuse and that it was “incredulous” to believe she would allow the bullying to happen in her classroom.

“Your failure to immediately grasp your serious breach of professional conduct is astounding,” Fowler-Fung said in the letter to O’Hara. “Based on your own statements, not only did you totally abdicate all authority and supervision of a professional teacher, your actions were insensitive, demeaning and unprofessional.”

The district placed O’Hara on suspension with pay until June 19 but the teacher has since resigned her position at Lake Washington High School for the following school year.

The Kirkland police investigation into this incident is still ongoing.

The Reporter requested the investigation documents from the Lake Washington School District on May 31 and received the documents July 12.