KALAMAZOO, MI (WWMT/CNN) – An eighth grader is home from school and nursing a sore neck after a substitute teacher allegedly grabbed the boy around the neck and threw him out of class.
Mother of three Mona Thompson says she was hurt and traumatized when her 13-year-old son Jamyre came home from Milwood Magnet Middle School Tuesday with red marks and bruises on his neck.
According to Thompson, Jamyre claims his substitute teacher grabbed him by the neck and tried to physically remove him from class after another student threw a tennis ball at the teacher.
"The teacher asked him to leave the classroom. My son said, 'No, I'm not going to leave. I'm doing my work. It wasn't me.' The teacher asked him two more times. He was sitting at his desk at this time. I was then told by the principal that somehow the teacher walked over and decided to physically remove my son from the classroom and grabbed him by his throat,” Thompson said.
The heated physical exchange escalated and spilled into the hallway.
"After it got into the hallway, that's when the cameras caught a picture of it – when the other students were trying to help my son, and my son, in return, turned around and retaliated with a punch,” Thompson said.
School officials say there are conflicting allegations related to the incident, but the teacher has been removed from the substitute teaching list. In addition, four students have been scheduled for due process hearings.
Thompson says even though the substitute was removed from the district’s on-call system, she’s disappointed it had to come to this.
"There's policies and procedures that are set into place that this teacher could have taken before it became physical, and to the people out there that have something to say negative about my son or, you know, 'it's about how the parents raised him'; he's been raised very well,” Thompson said.
A police investigation into the incident is ongoing.
Copyright 2018 WWMT, Mona Thompson via CNN. All rights reserved.
