According to Veronica Peoples, a mother from Pontiac, Michigan, her 6-year-old daughter was physically abused by a substitute teacher in class. Peoples has made the story public, although the investigation is still ongoing and no charges have been brought.
The alleged incident took place at the Pontiac Academy for Excellence. Apparently the little girl needed to get the teacher’s attention, and so she tapped him on the shoulder. The teacher is said to have become irate with the tapping, and grabbed the girl. He then allegedly picked her up and slammed her to the ground. The assault left bruises on the girl’s face.
Peoples came forward and spoke to the media about the incident, saying that she wants the teacher to go to jail. She also said that she is hurt by the fact that her daughter was harmed for simply trying to ask a question. “I think it’s that serious. I don’t think he should ever be inside school ever again,” she told the media during an interview. But People’s appears to be the only one who thinks her daughter was assaulted.
According to the school, the incident was nothing more than an accident. They say that the teacher was trying to return the girl to her seat when he accidentally dropped her. A statement released by administrators at the Pontiac Academy for Excellence, where the girl is a student, released a statement to the press after People’s went public with her accusation.
“A first-grade student was injured in Pontiac Academy for Excellence. While we regret that the injury happened, we feel thankful that it was non-life-threatening. Initial statements from the student and witnesses in the room corroborate that the injury was accidental. A substitute teacher was attempting to help the student into a seat when the eye of the student was injured against a desk.”
After the incident was reported, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department was contacted, as well as Child Protective Services. The school says they followed policy, by sending the teacher home immediately and having the child sent home to her family as well. The little girl was later checked out at a hospital, but no information is available about her condition.
An unidentified relative of the young girl has said that People’s intends to press charges against the teacher in question. In the wake of this incident being made public, numerous people have spoken out on social media about how horrible the situation is, and have suggested a number of drastic measures to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.
However, all of those suggestions, many of which are utterly impractical, are made based on the assumption that the teacher actually assaulted a child. However given the fact that the school and all of the witnesses say that it was an accident, and only the mother is claiming that it was intentional, we cannot be sure. The police and CPS are still investigating.
We would like to remind our readers that an allegation is not the same thing as a fact. Just because someone makes a claim, does not mean that that claim is automatically truth. Until the investigation is complete, and we have a fuller picture of what happened, it is best not to make accusations or assume that something happened a specific way. Currently, there are no charges against the teacher, which means that in the eyes of the law, he is innocent of wrongdoing.