SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) – WTOC has exclusively obtained a shocking video of a teacher, throwing a student across a classroom at DeRenne Middle School in Savannah on Friday.
WTOC spoke with the heartbroken mother of this 11-year-old who’s asking for accountability from the school district.
DeRenne Middle School mother, Che’Nelle Russell received this disturbing video Friday. That afternoon she got a call about an altercation between her 6th grade son TJ and the football coach, who was in charge of the classroom that day.
That teacher was identified as BeTreylin Elder.
“I was told that he had a share of words that were inappropriate to TJ and that he had made some remarks about me and my son was unhappy with it. So my son then went to the front of the classroom to approach the teacher, letting him know, hey, stop talking about my mom. The teacher then came closer to my son. My son again said, ‘Stop talking about my mom’, and also wanted to call me. From that point, he was then grabbed and thrown to the floor like nothing,” said Russell.
The comments, according to this student were sexual in nature, one of the quotes from that teacher, “That he left his shoes at TJ’s mom’s house.”
Russell said she has never even met this teacher before and is appalled a teacher would say anything like this to her son.
“I just feel like they failed me. They let me down. It is heartbreaking. It causes a lack of trust in the school system. Something needs to be done,” said Russell.
In the video, the teacher can be seen standing over and straddling the student after throwing him down.
“I believe he then grabbed TJ and shoved him out of the classroom where it was witnessed by the assistant principal- aggressively again,” said Russell.
They went to the ER that night, TJ now has a concussion, and multiple bruises and is frightened to go back to school.
“He needs to be placed in jail. He hurt my boy. I’m heartbroken because I wouldn’t do that to my child. His father wouldn’t do that to him. So for him to take the initiative to do that is sickening. What are you going through at home? Are you beating on your children? Are you beating on your wife,” asked Russell.
Russell said she doesn’t want this to change the way her son thinks of teachers, or school as a whole but is worried about the emotional toll this will have long term.
She said the school district needs to have more thorough training and a better vetting process.
“I hate that he had to be made an example out of to get a sick individual out of a schoolhouse, but something needs to change,” Russell.
WTOC reached out to the Savannah Chatham County Public School System following the incident.
SCCPSS responded with the statement below:
WTOC also tried to reach out to the teacher involved, BeTreylin Elder, we have not received a response.
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