A first grade boy told a forensic interviewer that former Hamilton County teacher Duane Sanders Jr. allegedly had students sit on his lap in the classroom and touch them, according to video footage shown in court Wednesday.
“At least I don’t have to sit with him a lot,” the boy said in the video. “Some kids sit with him a lot. I’m proud I don’t sit with him a lot.”
Sanders, 46, was a first grade teacher at Wallace A. Smith Elementary School in Ooltewah.
He is charged with two counts of aggravated rape of a child, 14 counts of continuous sexual abuse of a child and 13 counts of aggravated sexual battery.