A New York City substitute teacher was fired after she asked her 4th graders for dating advice, DNAinfo reported.
Cassandre Fiering, 45, was fired from P.S. 189 in the Bronx after she asked a class of five students to help her decide between two men she was seeing, according to documents from an investigation obtained by DNAinfo.
The school was alerted to the situation when students told administrators Fiering asked them for romantic advice.
According to the report, the incident occurred in June 2013 when Fiering, who is also an actress, told the students that one of the guys she was seeing was not returning her calls. The teacher also played a game where the students pretended to be her while Fiering pretended to be her love interests, according to the investigation.
Investigators say Fiering hugged one student and touched another on the shoulder. She also allegedly touched two other students on the thighs, which Fiering said never happened.
The 4th graders advised Fiering to leave the boyfriend who was not calling her back. The Department of Education fired her in December.
Fiering told DNAinfo that she did talk to the students about her romantic life, but they were just playing around.
"The kids were saying, 'Oh, we're your counselor,' " she said. "They were excited to have me listen to their advice...They were saying all kinds of things, trying to help me because this guy was being a jerk to me.
"It was also G-rated," said Fiering, who has appeared in commercials and small movie roles. "I certainly wasn't talking about sex or anything."
Fiering taught previously in Oakland and Rhode Island before working for the DOE in March 2013. But she was never suspected of inappropriately touching a student. Fiering intends to appeal her termination, which she says was too harsh of a punishment.
"I crossed the line I shouldn't have," Fiering told DNAinfo. "[But] considering everything else, why couldn't they say, 'Be careful about that?' "