BAKER COUNTY, Fla. — A physical education teacher at Westside Elementary School was arrested after authorities say he taped a 10-year-old student to a chair during class Thursday.

Kristopher Waite, a physical education teacher at Westside Elementary, is charged with felony cruelty toward a child, according to a police report.

The girl’s mother, Angel Haire, told First Coast News that Waite taped her daughter to a chair after she was playing with tape at his desk. She recounted what her daughter told her.

“’When I got to gym, I went in and I sat down at Mr. Waite’s desk and I was playing with the tape on his desk and he told me to stop playing with this tape and put it down,'” Haire said. “‘I put it down, and then he came up and picked up the tape and then started wrapping it around me, around my waist, and he did it multiple times. And then he walked away.'”

According to a police report, Haire said another student had to use a tape dispenser to cut her daughter free.

“What is in this teacher’s mind that makes him think that it’s okay to tape my daughter to a chair?” Haire added.

The police report said Waite told police he “jokingly” wrapped the tape around the girl and said, “the victim and other classmates were laughing.”

The girl’s aunt, Selena Truett, was in shock to hear this.

“In the end of the day, if it was joking or not, he’s a teacher,” Truett said. “There is a certain role that you play as a teacher and being a child’s friend is not it.”

“You think when your kids go to school, they’re gonna be safe, the teachers there to protect them,” Haire went on to say.

The family says they are now dealing with online bullying in the wake of the incident.

“Blaming a child for something a 50-year-old man did to her?” Haire said. “I started getting messages that this was my daughter’s fault and that she was probably misbehaving and that she pretty much deserved being taped to the chair … my daughter is receiving text messages on her phone from her friends being hateful to her because that was their favorite teacher.”

Haire said she will be homeschooling her 10-year-old and says her priority is to protect her daughter.

“It hurt my feelings to learn that she had been through that,” Haire said. “I come from a childhood of being molested and raped and stuff. No, he didn’t harm her. No, he didn’t put his hands on her in any other form or fashion, but it’s just a trauma trigger.”

According to his arrest report, Waite told police he didn’t believe it was a “big deal.”

The Baker County Sheriff’s Office said they won’t be making comments at this time as deputies are still gathering more information.

The school district confirmed they are also conducting their own internal investigation.