SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC/Gray News) – A mom in Georgia said a teacher threw her 11-year-old son across a classroom, and it was caught on video.
The incident happened at DeRenne Middle School in Savannah on Friday.
Video shows BeTreylin Elder, a teacher and football coach, grabbing a student identified as TJ by the shirt and throwing him across the room onto desks, knocking him down.
Che’Nelle Russell, TJ’s mother, said she wants accountability from the school district.
“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,” Russell said.
The comments, according to another student, were sexual in nature, with the teacher allegedly saying 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,” Russell said.
Russell said her son was injured in the altercation, saying he has a concussion, multiple bruises, and is now scared 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 [the teacher] to take the initiative to do that is sickening,” Russell said.
Russell said she doesn’t want this to change the way her son thinks of teachers, or school as a whole, but she 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 [my son] had to be made an example out of to get a sick individual out of a schoolhouse, but something needs to change,” Russell said.
The district said the teacher was initially relocated but has since resigned.
The Savannah Chatham County Public School System said in a statement:
WTOC also tried to reach out to the teacher involved and has not received a response.
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