Two School Employees Fired After Recorder Captures Comments About Autistic Boy

Milissa Davis knew something was wrong with her 12-year-old son, but Camden could not explain what was happening at school. He had severe autism and difficulties with communication, so when his behavior suddenly changed, his mother was left trying to piece together the reason.

Camden had started wetting the bed again, appeared anxious and became aggressive. After raising concerns with his school, Davis decided to place a small audio recorder inside his backpack. What it captured inside his special needs classroom in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, would eventually lead to two school employees losing their jobs.

Camden’s Behavior Had Suddenly Changed

Camden was a student at Hope Academy, a school serving children with special needs. His mother said his communication difficulties made it particularly difficult for him to tell her what happened during the school day, leaving her concerned when his behavior began to shift.

Davis brought her concerns to the school and wanted to address what she believed might be contributing to the change. Her attorney later summarized one of her requests, saying, “I would like to address where my son is seated, that my son has had a behavior change.”

When she still suspected something was wrong, Davis decided she needed to hear what was happening for herself. She sent Camden to school with a recorder hidden inside his book sack, without the adults in the classroom knowing it was there.

The resulting audio lasted just under 25 minutes and captured conversations involving at least two adults. Davis later shared the recording publicly, along with a warning about its contents.

The Audio Captured Remarks About Camden

One portion of the recording involved an adult criticizing Camden over his written work. The speaker said, “Camden, why don’t you have anything written down? That’s why you can’t sit with everyone. Tell your momma that.”

The recording later captured another remark directed toward Camden about his work. The adult asked, “You’re just writing the word. What is hard about it?”

Davis said the recording confirmed her fears about what her son had been experiencing. She also alleged that Camden had faced bullying and mistreatment from other children as well as adults at the school.

“I just wanted to cry, scream and do everything I could because it was so bad,” Davis told WBRZ. She said it was particularly painful to realize she had been sending her son to school every day without knowing what had been happening.

The recording gave Davis information Camden had been unable to provide himself, turning her concerns about his behavior into a much larger confrontation with the school.

Adults Were Also Heard Discussing His Future

Another section of the recording involved two adults discussing Camden while talking about his expected move to Live Oak Middle School. One speaker said, “Let’s see what they do with him in public school.”

The other adult reportedly responded that Camden would not make it for a minute. The comments became part of the controversy as the recording spread beyond the school and into local and national news coverage.

Charlotte McGehee, the attorney representing the Davis family, said the treatment captured on the recording was particularly troubling because of Camden’s vulnerability. “When I heard the treatment of this child through the recording his mother made, I was horrified,” McGehee said.

She argued that children with disabilities require additional protection from the adults responsible for their care. “One of the worst possible things you can do is take advantage of the infirm, or a disadvantaged child. They need the extra protection, and he didn’t get it,” McGehee said.

Davis Put The Recording Online

Davis shared the audio alongside a written message explaining why she had recorded her son’s school day. She described Camden as a child with autism who had difficulties communicating and said she had become suspicious that something was happening at school.

Her message ended with a direct appeal to the public: “Please share so we can get justice for Camden!”

The recording was uploaded to YouTube on March 23, 2018, before being shared through Facebook and picked up by news organizations. WBRZ’s investigative reporting helped bring the case to a wider audience, while national outlets subsequently reported on the controversy.

The story spread rapidly over the following days, putting increased attention on the two employees whose voices appeared in the recording.

Two School Employees Were Fired

By the time WBRZ reported on the case on April 10, 2018, one of the two staff members had already been fired. The other remained employed at the time, with the school initially planning to end that person’s employment at the conclusion of the school year.

That plan changed as the story gained national attention. The second employee was fired shortly afterward, meaning both staff members connected to the recording had lost their jobs.

Reports identified the pair as a teacher and a school aide, although neither was publicly named. Meanwhile, Davis had already made her own decision about Camden’s future at the school.

She withdrew her son from Hope Academy and enrolled him somewhere else after hearing what had been captured on the recorder.

Hope Academy Initially Questioned The Audio

The school’s first public response did not immediately amount to an apology. Principal Linda Stone defended Hope Academy’s record and questioned the nature of the recording, describing it as a collection of conversations.

“The recording appears to be a compilation of audio clips, many of which involve private conversations between two adults with no other persons/children present,” Stone said in a statement.

Two days later, the school issued a different message and apologized to the family. “This is incredibly unfortunate, and we sincerely apologize to the family,” Stone said, adding that the school continued to welcome a meeting with the family.

By then, however, Camden was no longer attending the school and the recording had become a national news story.

Parents Did Not All See The School The Same Way

The controversy continued at a meeting with school leadership, where parents expressed sharply different views about Hope Academy. Some parents said the recording had raised serious concerns about how vulnerable children were being treated.

Aidan Reynolds, whose child also had autism, described his reaction after hearing the audio. “The father in me was outraged, profoundly disappointed. I was angry,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds wanted stronger protections and pointed to rules in Texas that allow parents and staff to request audio and video recordings in classrooms serving special needs students.

Another parent at the meeting described a very different experience with the school. Jennifer Hogan, whose son also attended Hope Academy, said the staff had helped her child make progress.

“They have helped us move him along,” Hogan said. “He’s functioning a lot better now. He’s happy. He’s learning.”

The competing accounts showed how differently families could experience the same institution, while the recording forced the school to address what had happened inside one classroom.

The School Proposed Cameras Throughout The Building

About a week after the initial report, Hope Academy proposed several changes in response to the controversy. The plans included cameras throughout the building, additional sensitivity training for staff and tighter background checks.

Board president Brandon Black said a formal plan would be announced the following week. Questions remained about how the proposed cameras would be funded, but the idea represented a major change for the school.

The proposal also carried an uncomfortable irony. Davis had placed a recorder in her son’s backpack because she suspected something was wrong and could not get the explanation from him directly.

The school was now considering a permanent monitoring system that could provide another layer of oversight without requiring parents to secretly record their children.

Davis Said She Was Protecting Her Son

After the story spread, Davis thanked people in Baton Rouge who had supported her family and explained why she had decided to take action.

“People see these children need to be protected, and I was protecting my child because I knew things were going wrong,” Davis said.

Her decision began with a few troubling changes at home and a child who could not explain their cause. It ended with a recording that triggered firings, public scrutiny and proposals for new safeguards at the school.

For families caring for children with limited communication, the case showed how difficult it can be to investigate concerns that a child cannot describe. In Camden’s case, the answers came from a recorder hidden inside the backpack he carried into class each day.