A Weakley County mother is speaking out after she says a math teacher at Dresden Middle School put her hands around her 12-year-old son's neck in a school hallway on Oct. 20, WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News reported.
The mother, identified as Boyce, said her son came to her afraid and told her what happened. According to her account, he and some classmates were standing in the hallway, and he joked with the student beside him that other students farther down the hall were going to be late for class. She said that is when the teacher came from the other side of the hallway and grabbed him. Boyce said other students and another teacher saw it.
“He was scared. He’d never had a teacher do that to him before and didn’t know how to handle it,” Boyce told WBBJ.
Boyce said she called the school right away and later that week met with the principal, the teacher and the school resource officer. She said that when she asked the teacher to explain her side, the teacher said she did grab the boy by the throat but that it was done in a “joking” way, then got up and grabbed Boyce by the throat to demonstrate. “Nobody seemed concerned about it,” Boyce said.
In a written statement, Weakley County Schools said its investigation found “no evidence of malicious intent” but that the contact “was not acceptable.” The district said administrators took “appropriate corrective action” and declined to give details, calling it a personnel matter. The teacher has not been named.
Boyce said her son now does his math work in a separate classroom. She also said officers never took a statement from her or her son. The Weakley County Sheriff's Office said Wednesday that the district's statement stands and that no criminal charges will be pursued “at this time.”
Sources: WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News, Weakley County Schools, Weakley County Sheriff's Office