A Georgia special education teacher faces a felony child cruelty charge after placing a student with special needs into a trash can last month, police and school officials said.

According to Cobb County School District Police records, Mount Bethel Elementary School teacher Mary Katherine Pursley picked up a second grade autistic student who was upset about coming back indoors and about a student bothering him during the after school program.

Pursely, a 21-year-veteran teacher in the East Cobb area who was not assigned to work with the after school program, came in and approached the young boy, who was “screaming and wouldn’t calm down” in the classroom.

Soon after, police say, Pursely told the student about the Sesame Street character Oscar the Grouch, who notably lives in a garbage can. She then told the student “if he had trashy behavior like Oscar, he’d go to the trash can,” a police warrant states.

Pursely picked up the young boy, dangled him upside down over a trash can in the classroom and was subsequently lowered down head-first into the trash can past his shoulders.

A Mount Bethel employee who was sent to investigate the disruption witnessed the incident and then confronted Pursely. Witnesses told police that the student was crying and yelling for the teacher to stop as he was lowered into the trash can. Following the confrontation, the employee reported Pursley to the school’s administration before police were contacted.

Pursely was arrested Monday by CCSD Police and charged with one count of child cruelty in the first degree. NBC affiliate 11 Alive reported that she was released Tuesday on a $5,000 bond.

According to a school district spokesperson, Pursely has been removed from her teaching duties and will remain on paid administrative leave while an investigation into the incident is conducted.