Teacher tapes mouths of 11-year-old students for more than half an hour
- Clarence Williams, a Texas middle school math teacher, allegedly taped his student’s mouth shut for 30 to 45 minutes
- Williams was placed on paid leave for a week while he was on site
- School district is investigating the incident
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Devin Ortiz (right) had his mouth and nose taped shut by his teacher
A Texas middle school teacher allegedly taped his 11-year-old student’s mouth shut for 30 to 45 minutes, making it difficult for him to breathe.
Clarence Williams of Palo Alto Middle School in Killeen, Texas, has been placed on paid leave for a week while the local school district reviews a report of the incident.
School officials did not say what prompted the teacher to tape the boy’s mouth shut on October 23.
The incident is just one of thousands of such cases being reported across the United States.
Ernesto Ortiz, the student’s father, makes sure the public hears the family’s side. He told a local news channell that it took the nurse about an hour to remove the tape with ice and petroleum jelly.
Ortiz’s son, Devin, said: “Mr. Williams called me into the classroom. I said, ‘What happened?’ He said, “It’s not what’s happening, it’s what’s going to happen to you.”
So he grabs the tape and tapes it twice over my mouth and then once here up to my nose.
It was announced yesterday that Tracy Drayton, a gym teacher in Albany, Georgia, will keep her job after a 30-day unpaid suspension after surveillance footage showed her hitting a student.
The school board’s unanimous decision to suspend was in line with a recommendation from Turner Elementary’s principal, Gail Solomon, but went against the superintendent’s proposal that Drayton be terminated, the WALB said.
The teacher must attend an anger management course before being transferred to another school on a probationary basis.
This is just one of many incidents reported by teachers across the country.
Special education teacher Willie Swindle, who was named Educator of the Year in California’s North Bay School District in 2011, was recently allowed to teach allegations in the same classroom that he physically hit Santa Rosa High School student Michael Delgado.
Swindle is reportedly “flicking,” “pinching,” and “pulling” at Delgado’s ears. The teacher has denied the allegations.
A middle school in Palo Alto where the tape incident occurred
In Texas, Taylor Santos, a student at Springtown High School, received a beating that left her covered in bruises and blisters.
The trial violated the school’s corporal punishment policy, which dictates that the instructor teaching the paddling must be the same gender as the student.
Instead of apologizing, the district expanded its policy to allow opposite-sex paddling. Texas is one of 19 states that allow educators to spank students, but 97 of the country’s 100 largest school districts have banned corporal punishment.
In recent months, an 8-year-old child with special needs has been physically and mentally abused by his teacher in Mingo County.
Reported cases of disabled children allegedly being abused in the classroom are skyrocketing across the country, and many more fall through the cracks that remain unreported.
In 2010, the US House of Representatives passed legislation banning untrained teachers from using restraints or other techniques that could physically harm children.
The legislation follows a 2009 General Accounting Office report that uncovered thousands of instances in which teachers allegedly injured disabled students by using improper restraint techniques, abusive isolation, or hitting the child with the hand or other instrument.
GAO investigators found 84,354 cases of reported classroom abuse nationwide in the 2010-2011 school year alone, including reports of improper restraint, seclusion, or what teachers and aides defined as other means of “emergency intervention.”
