Representational image of Shelly Hinton, Vice President of Akron-Canton Regional Food Bank, speaking to students at Saint Hillary School ...
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| Representational image of Shelly Hinton, Vice President of Akron-Canton Regional Food Bank, speaking to students at Saint Hillary School about the Hungry To Help Lesson Plan in Fairlawn, Ohio, May 24, 2017. Photo: Duane Prokop/Getty Images for Feeding America |
By Vaishnavi Vaidyanathan, International Business Times
A Texas special education teacher was suspended Tuesday after a video surfaced of her allegedly spitting on a pupil.
The video of the incident at Grand Prairie High School, which surfaced online earlier this week, showed a female instructor approaching toward the students before allegedly spitting at a child.
The woman in the video was identified as Tiffany White by the school district after they learnt about it when a student brought it to a staff member's attention.
"The teacher was immediately placed on administrative leave and will not be returning to the classroom. The safety and dignity of our students is paramount to providing a nurturing environment where students can learn and be successful,” the district said in a written statement, Dallas News reported.
Grand Prairie Independent School District spokesman Sam Buchmeyer said the district communicated with the student's parents about the incident. He believed the incident happened in a special education class; however, there was no information about the student’s age or grade level.
“The parents had the option to file charges but decided not to pursue it,” Grand Prairie police told CBS. “To me being the parent of a special needs son, I have an autistic son who is in the 7th grade, any parent who is taking care of or working with those children. You have to have patience and understanding and to spit on them would portray the wrong type of behavior to that individual,” Doris Brown, a parent said.
“I think that person should be removed from that position and they need to offer more training on how to communicate and display appropriate behavior to those type of children,” she added.
As of Thursday, she was on administrative leave.
In a similar incident, a mother sued a Missouri day care after surveillance and iPad footage showed teachers encouraging preschool-age children to fight each other. The incident took place in December 2016.
According to the lawsuit, Nicole Merseal's then-4-year-old son was encouraged to fight with other children in class.
"My son was very afraid. He didn't understand why his best friends beat him up. These are children that he's been around for a couple years. He described them as his best friends. He just doesn't understand why they punched him in the face. ... I don't know any parent that could watch their children go through this and not be upset,” Merseal told ABC News.
Merseal's attorney, Jennifer Hansen, said one of Merseal’s older sons took a video of the incident and sent it to his mother.
"When I got the video, I was just in complete shock. I immediately left work. I also called the day care immediately and told them to go stop the fighting,” Hansen said.
Merseal was seeking $25,000 in damages in her civil suit against the day care.
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