The incident happened three weeks ago at Ward Elementary School. The teacher is still in the classroom, parents claim.
SAN ANTONIO — Families are frustrated after an elementary teacher was accused of assaulting two students but remains in class while under investigation.
The incident happened on November 12 at Dr. Joe Ward Elementary School.
According to the Northside Independent School District (NISD) police report, the fifth graders were lining up for lunch when the teacher tried to stop two students who were supposed to be dismissed early.
“The teacher pushed two of the students,” said a father, who we are not identifying to protect his child. “One [of the students] stumbled backwards a little bit, and the other stumbled back into some chairs and scraped their leg.”
The second student was taken to the nurse’s office to have the injury examined and documented. The incident report shows the teacher denied touching the students and demanded they be removed from her classroom.
“I always teach my children to do what’s right and my child did that,” said the father. “They were able to speak up when nobody would listen.”
Parents told KENS 5 the elementary teacher has displayed concerning behavior for years. Students claim the teacher acts differently when other adults are around.
“She talks down to them and then they will go home and cry to their parents or to their [other] teachers and just don’t want to go back,” the father said.
But officers decided not to file charges against the teacher because “there were no adult witnesses and no cameras in the classroom,” the incident report states.
“There’s pictures of the incident, there were anywhere between 16 to 20 kids in the room, so I think there’s plenty of evidence,” said the frustrated parent.
One of the victim’s mother released the following statement.
“Based off the assault incident that occurred with my child, I feel the elementary school is brushing things under the rug as the teacher is still on school premises teaching. As a result of the assault, I emailed the principal, my child’s teacher and superintendent as I feel the confidence in staff to be able to support and protect [my child] has been taken away. As the investigation got underway, I hoped the school would have been on my child’s side and released the teacher from Ward Elementary School. I don’t understand how she can continue to work as a teacher from her past behavior of verbal and now physical abuse of students.”
“Why hasn’t any action been taken?” asked the dad. “It kind of makes the children feel like they did something wrong.”
An NISD spokesperson said the district ‘”s aware of the allegations and is actively investigating,” but declined to comment further.