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Did teacher give 2nd-grader a bra?

Did a teacher at Laura Waring Elementary give a 7-year-old girl a pink strapless bra with silver glitter on it that she wore home under her clothing?

Did a teacher at Laura Waring Elementary give a 7-year-old girl a pink strapless bra with silver glitter on it that she wore home under her clothing?

It's a case of he said, she said.

But the "he" is an adult male teacher and the "she" is a second-grader at the school, at 18th and Green streets.

And now the Philadelphia School District is investigating whether the teacher gave the girl the bra.

"The teacher denies that he gave her the bra," schools spokesman Fernando Gallard said yesterday.

But the girl has said the instructor - who teaches a class that second-graders visit twice a week outside their homeroom - did.

"The school has an ongoing investigation of this matter and due to privacy rights of the student and the teacher, we will not comment any further on the details," Gallard said.

The Waring school is one of about 20 operated by the for-profit Edison Schools Inc.

No one at Edison could be reached for comment last night.

The mother of the 7-year-old girl, who described her daughter as "very pretty, thin and with long hair," said the gift of the bra was not the first the male teacher has given her daughter this school year.

In October, the mother said her daughter started coming home with $1 bills.

When she asked where the money came from, the child said the male teacher gave her the money.

Other gifts that ranged from a large pack of pencils to a nice picture frame and a "barking" toy dog followed, the mother said.

She said the teacher also gave her daughter a T-shirt that had: "I love you," written on it, but the mother said the girl placed the shirt on another teacher's desk, and it has now disappeared.

"The only gifts that I don't have that he gave her are the T-shirt and the bra," the mother said.

She said she gave the bra to Waring Principal Carol Martin, who had promised to investigate the allegation.

When her daughter was called to the principal's office, to talk about the bra, the mother said she came home and asked: "Why does Ms. Martin have the bra that Mr. ---- gave me?"

She said her daughter told her she had been at the end of the class line when she filed out of the man's classroom.

He pulled her aside, gave her the bra and told her to put it in her backpack.

The girl told her mother that later, she put the bra on when she and some of her girlfriends went into a bathroom.

The mother said it was an A cup bra, suitable for a teenager.

Two parents of other students - one at Waring Elementary and one at a different school - called the Daily News about the case, saying there were concerns for the children's safety.

The mother said that before the bra incident, she had told Martin that she did not like the teacher giving so many gifts to her daughter.

She said that during a recent school conference the teacher admitted giving some of the gifts because her daughter was "a very, very good student."

The mother said her daughter "is a straight-A student" who has never caused trouble at school.

Since last Friday, the mother said she asked that her daughter no longer attend the male teacher's class.

"When they go to his room, she goes to the office," the mother said.

She said her daughter told her that two other little girls in her class also have been given gifts by the male teacher. *