School officials in one Florida County have found a source of violence in at least one public school. A teacher, who was allegedly running a fight club of sorts.
The Free Press reported on Tuesday, that a teacher at Griffin Middle School in Leon County was arrested for running a fight club in her classroom.
WCTV reported that last month some sixth-grade students alerted the school resource deputy that teacher Angel Footman, 23, permitted “several” fights to take place in her room.
Some of the informants were also participants in the brawls.
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WCTV noted that school administrators obtained videos of the fights, which occurred during school hours and which included Footman telling the combatants the rules: “30 seconds, no screaming, no yelling, no phones.”
Footman now faces charges for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, WCTV reported.
According to the outlet, a detective who reviewed the videos declared that the teacher was “sitting on her desk, failing to intervene, and making statements including ‘no screaming, no nothing’ and ‘stop pulling hair.’” Footman also did not report the fights to school administrators.
WCTV reported that Footman told investigators she was not the organizer, but instead failed to get help or take quick action to stop or report the fights.
“This is an active investigation, LCSO appreciates the diligent parents and others for reporting the videos to administrators. This is a perfect example of practicing “See Something, Say Something” to reduce harm in these types of situations,” said Leon County Sheriff’s Office in a press release.
Footman faces four counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
In Other Teacher News:
A Florida teacher was recently fired because he had students write their own obituaries before his school participated in an active-shooter drill.
Jeffrey Keene, a psychology teacher at Dr. Phillips High School in Orlando, directed 11th and 12th graders in his first-period class to write their own obituaries last week as a part of their coursework.
In an interview with NBC News, Keene said, “It wasn’t to scare them or make them feel like they were going to die, but just to help them understand what’s important in their lives and how they want to move forward with their lives and how they want to pursue things in their journey,” Keene said.
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That did not matter to school officials. He was fired by the end of the day.
Orange County Public Schools said Keene was axed after “families were informed that a teacher gave an inappropriate assignment about school violence.”
Keene was hired in January and was still on probation. Thus, the school district did not have to butt heads with the teachers’ union to oust him from the classroom.
The incident occurred shortly after a transgender man shot up a school in Nashville, killing six people, including three children.
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“I don’t think I did anything incorrectly,” Keene told NBC. “I know hindsight is 20/20, but I honestly didn’t think a 16-, 17-, 18-year-old would be offended or upset by talking about something we’re already talking about.”
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