The principal of a private, Christian school in Northwest D.C. says a teacher was suspended after two students said the teacher pushed a desk into one student and left bruises on the neck of another.
A concerned mother contacted News4 after her 13-year-old son left the Preparatory School of DC with bruises on his neck. They say that on Wednesday, the teacher attacked the student.
The seventh-grader had refused to leave the classroom when the teacher told him to go out in the hallway, the school’s principal, Betty North, said.
A classmate who said he witnessed the attack said the teacher was angry, grabbed his student and then forced him out the door.
“[The teacher] got angry and grabbed him by the back of the neck and pushed him down to his waist area and shoved him out the door,” the student said.
The teacher put his hands on the 13-year-old to get him out of the room, North said. But she said the student wasn’t attacked or grabbed.
“[The student] was pushing back. When he pushed back, the pressure from [the teacher’s] hand [was] pushing him forward. That created the problem,” she said, demonstrating on News4's Shomari Stone. She mimed that the teacher placed a hand on the back of the boy's neck and another on his shoulder and back area.
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Another student said the same teacher was aggressive with him after he expressed confusion in class.
“I told him I didn’t understand the questions,” the student said. “So he pushed a desk into me.”
Teachers are instructed not to touch students, North said. The teacher was still in the classroom Monday, but was suspended Tuesday, North told News4. She also said the school has launched an internal investigation.
The seventh-grader's mother said she was too upset to speak on camera.
The school’s website says it is a nonprofit school that educates children from infancy through high school.
