BATON ROUGE - Victoria and Jevon Cross say they've been having issues with the teachers at Riveroaks Elementary since their children started attending in 2022.

"When [the teachers] come to school, they're supposed to be [the children's] protectors and they're not. It's like they're afraid of the kids," Jevon Cross said.

They say their two sons weren't doing well in school and one of them was getting bullied. The family had meetings with the principal, faculty and the school board about the issues, but nothing changed.

"They told me they can fix the problems that I had and they couldn't let them go to another school. They talked with me about the problems and I took it as them saying, 'you got to stick with what you got,'" Victoria Cross said. 

The parents tried to meet with one of the son's teachers to discuss his grades, but couldn't get in touch with her.

"We tried the principal, the assistant principal, the secretary. She went as far as to asking other teachers. Being upset, his mom told him to tell the teacher 'hey, my mom is fed up'. Maybe that would be a way to get in touch with her," Jevon said.

When the son relayed the message to the teacher, he said she called the principal and he was yelled at. When they went back, he said the teacher yelled out his grade in front of everyone. 

"Then she called the principal. Then they started yelling at me and putting me in a corner," Kingston Cross said.

"When he gets back in class, the teacher, the adult says, 'since you wanted to say it like that then I'm going to expose your grade in this class: an F,'" Jevon said. 

"It just made me feel embarrassed and shy," Kingston said.

The final straw for the Crosses was when Child Protective Services were called on them.

The family believes the school used a situation that occurred a couple of days earlier as retaliation. Victoria went to the school counselor to address the bullying her son was going through.

"I said, 'Ms. Adams, you got to find the problem. We've got to do something.'"

While they were talking, Victoria Cross says her youngest child was in the truck with her. The window was down and the child was not crying, but Victoria said CPS was at her door just days after the conversation.

CPS told the Crosses that someone at the school called and said she left a child in a hot car alone. 

In fear of her children's safety, Victoria pulled her kids out of school. They were finally able to transfer and the children started at a new school since this story aired.