A fourth-grade teacher allegedly sexually abused a juvenile at a northwest D.C. school, according to the Metropolitan Police Department.
An 11-year-old boy said Giovanni Peña touched him inappropriately over his clothing in the classroom and sent an inappropriate picture to the boy's cellphone via the Snapchat app during the 2013-14 school year, when the boy was 9 or 10 years old, according to court documents.
In addition to being the boy's teacher at the time, he described Peña as a close family friend who had traveled on vacation with him.
Police learned of the allegations Monday and interviewed Peña at his home Tuesday. The suspect admitted sending the picture and touching the boy, according to court documents.
Peña, 31, is charged with second-degree sexual abuse of a child.
He taught English at Oyster-Adams Bilingual School in the 2000 block of 19th Street NW since 2008, according to the school's website.
He previously taught the second and third grades. He won The Washington Post's D.C. Teacher of the Year Award in 2011 after being nominated by his union, News4's Chris Gordon reported.
Evgenia Sorokina, who has a daughter in Peña's class, took her daughter out of school early Wednesday because of the allegations.
"I 'm troubled and disturbed like everybody else in school," she said. "My daughter is scared."
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Peña was removed from the classroom when D.C. Public Schools was informed of the report.
"The safety of our students is a top priority," a statement from the school system said. "As soon as we became aware of this situation, we acted promptly to remove the teacher from the school and fully cooperate with MPD in this investigation."
