Teacher Resigns After 11-Year-Old Girl Receives 'Incredibly Upsetting' Letter: 'You Know I Truly Love You'

A Florida middle school teacher is expected to be charged with harassment over a letter he allegedly wrote to a female fifth-grade student, PEOPLE has learned.

Manatee County Sheriff Public Information Officer Randy Warren tells PEOPLE that “a harassment charge related to bullying will be filed soon” against the former fifth grade teacher, who resigned from the School District of Manatee County soon after the investigation began.

Local WFLA, WJBF, and KARK first reported this week that the teacher’s alleged letter was discovered by the parents of his former 11-year-old student. The teacher has not been identified because there have been no criminal charges filed against him, according to the outlets.

In a copy of the letter, the teacher allegedly wrote to the girl: “You know I truly love you no matter what, that will never change.”

The letter was signed off with “love,” and then the teacher’s name. The teacher’s alleged letter also included a request for the fifth grader to keep the correspondence a secret.

The discovery of the note shocked the 11-year-old student’s family and made her parents uneasy, they told WFLA.

“Incredibly upsetting as a father,” Jason Mitchell, the girl’s father, told the outlet.

Jason and Ann Mitchell, the girl’s mother, told WFLA they then turned the letter over to the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office.

“As a dad, where does your mind go from there? What did that open the door for in your head?” the girl’s father told the outlet.

“What can I do legally out of frustration from being in receipt of something like this? What more could he have done to my daughter?”

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In a statement to WFLA, School District of Manatee County Director of Communications Michael Barber said the teacher was initially “reassigned to a non-instructional facility where he had no contact with students.”

Then after Barber told WFLA “the district also notified the Florida Department of Children and Families, the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office, and the Florida Department of Education’s Office of Professional Practices” about the incident, the teacher officially resigned.