Sarah Sim’s daughter confessed to her that she was being bullied, the mother immediately tried to think of ways to stop it. Sims said that she tried to reach out to administrators at Ocean View Elementary School in Norfolk, Virginia, where her daughter is in the fourth grade. She said that she decided to take the matter into her own hands. She sent her daughter with a recorder in her bookbag in hopes to get the bullies harassing her. School officials found and took the device. Earlier this month, Norfolk police charged Sims with a felony (intercepting wire, electronic or oral communications) and with a misdemeanor — contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

     “I’m a full-time student, so I don’t always get the opportunity to be on the premises, and I thought that this would be a good way for me to learn the environment,” Sims, 47, told CNN’s Don Lemon on Monday. She faces up to five years in prison if convicted on the felony charge. Sims said she doesn’t know why the school called the police and not her when the incident happened last month. It wasn’t the first time her daughter had been bullied at the school, Sims said. In third grade, her daughter “had been kicked in her stomach and hit with a jump rope on the playground,” Sims said, adding that the school didn’t notify her then.

     “She became very anxious about attending,” Sims said. “I removed her from the school because she was refusing to go. She felt like she wasn’t protected.” Sims thought she was doing what she needed in order to protect her daughter. Sim’s daughter still attends the school but now goes to a different class. A court date is a state for January 18.